Crush On Child
by SideshowJazz1
Summary: Katherine "Kat" and her little sister Corrine don't really know each other that well, with the eleven-year age gap. So as a surprise twelfth birthday present to Corrine, Kat signs them up for a race around the world. But the bonding seems to be more between Corrine, and the next youngest competitor...Junior/OC. Ridonculous Race fic, but has some changes in elimination order...R&R!
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: A few days ago, someone asked me to write a Junior/OC story, writing exactly how they wanted the OC to be. However, I'm not good at writing other people's OCs, so I said no. However, Junior does deserve a few more stories, so I decided to write one.**

 **Plot: As a twelfth birthday surprise, Katherine "Kat" signs her sister Corrine up for a race around the world with her. They may be sisters, but they're also strangers, and this may be a birthday present, but it's also a bonding activity. However, the bonding seems to be less within the two and more between Corrine and the next youngest competitor...**

Impermanence. Most people my age don't even know the word, but they know what it means. Nothing lasts. Except death, I guess. But sometimes things can last for as long as forever. Or things can last for what feels like a short time, but really, it's something that only just got the new features that makes it something different.

Reality shows? They fall into both categories. They're new, but sixteen years feels like a long time, since I wasn't even born when they began. And the filming usually lasts for months at the most. Months that feel like a lifetime for the contestants.

That's what I learned this summer. And it began when my sister Kat (short for Katherine) visited. Most of the time, she lived in an apartment on the other side of Canada, but she usually came home for a week of the holidays. Even so, we barely knew anything about each other. At this time, she was twenty-three, I was a week off my twelfth birthday, and she was about to give me a birthday surprise that could either create the worst summer of my life, or be the best thing that ever happened to me.

"Reeni," she said innocently, "Have you ever wanted to be on TV?" (Reeni's a family nickname – I wish they'd just call me Corrine, though – what's the point of naming me if my family doesn't call me that?)

I shrugged noncommitally. "I've never thought about it."

Kat's smile became uncertain. "My point is, I feel like we don't really know each other. So I thought, for your birthday, I could set up a little activity so we could get to know each other. You have to be at least twelve, so I thought this could be the perfect time!"

I gave her a suspicious look. "What does that have to do with TV?"

And then Kat explained. "Well, there's a new reality show starting. Do you know of the Total Drama seasons?"

I nodded. "That's basically the _Survivor_ rip-off with teenagers, right? I watched the season on the film lot and I think I saw one on that whacked-out island that was full of mutants. And there was another season after that I think I saw, on the island but without all the mutants. But that's for teenagers."

Kat grinned, tucking her long blonde-streaked hair (still not as long as mine) behind her ears as she spoke. "Well, they're doing another reality show, but it's a little different." she said. "It's called The Ridonculous Race. Anyone twelve and over can apply, but only in teams of two, and anyone under fifteen has to have someone twenty-one or over as their partner. I signed us up...and they've accepted us!"

I gasped. "What? Seriously? I don't know whether to love you or hate you for this!"

Kat laughed. "Seriously, Reeni, this'll be fun. It'll be the perfect chance to get to know each other better. I haven't been able to be as much of a sister to you as I would've wanted to, cause of the age difference. And we're only one of nineteen teams. Maybe you'll meet a nice kid who you can be friends with."

I shrugged, not liking that she considered me a kid. "It's a competition, right? For another million dollars? So what are the other differences?"

Kat counted each one off on her fingers. "Well, there's no voting. Whoever finishes last in each elimination round gets sent home – some of them are non-elimination, but we won't know until after the challenge is over. And we basically have to fly, taxi, bus...travel to different places. We'll get travel tips to tell us what to do whenever we arrive at a destination. Oh, and there's a different host. I think Chris McLean from the first show has a lot of law suits to deal with, so someone else has taken over for him. That's pretty much it." She looked at me, and I could see a plea in her eyes. "Doesn't it sound like fun?"

I couldn't let her down. I really wasn't sure whether I wanted to do this. Even if it wasn't with my sister who I barely knew. But, then again, she _was_ my sister, and I didn't want to hurt her. And there was a part of me that...sort of wanted to do this. And...well...I liked adventures. I was the kind of person who was up for anything active like that. Why shouldn't I do it? What could go wrong?

Well, all right, a lot could go wrong. But no one had died on Total Drama so far (although to be fair, a couple of the contestants had been murderous – plus this one contestant called Alejandro was severely injured via lava spray according to the fifth season and a mutant shark mutilated an already injured contestant named Scott). As long as this season was as safe as the last few seasons, we should survive.

"All right." I smiled. "When do we start?"

"We can take the train to the starting line Monday week!" Kat said. The day after I turned twelve. Well, at least I knew the actual birthday date wouldn't suck, even if the show was the worst experience of my life.

I spent most of the week working out what I needed to pack for the show. First, I needed a signature outfit, so I just chose something casual – black jeans, a black T-shirt with Rocky Horror-style lips on it, and black ballet flats. But I also packed some variations, so I wouldn't freeze or boil in certain places.

I also packed the essentials, plus a few books and a notebook – on the first day, I planned to write down all the teams so I could keep track of who was a threat and who wasn't.

My birthday was all right. I spent the day with my friends, who were mostly envious.

"You are _so_ lucky, Corrine!" Jess remarked in particular. "Being on TV would be the coolest thing ever! And you might get a million dollars out of it, too!"

"Don't bet on it!" I said, laughing. "But Kat and I are definitely gonna try." By that time, I was getting excited. I literally couldn't wait to get there.

All too soon, the day was over, and I was sitting in a train with a bunch of other people, people I would be seeing a lot of for the next month.

 **Sorry this chapter was so short. I'll try to make the next ones longer. Just a heads-up, there will be a few eliminations that are different, and one non-elimination episode turned into an elimination after all.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Now, let's start on the show. Thanks for reviewing, Gage the Hedgehog, Bloodylilcorpse and SilverWriter0927.**

The train was full of competitors, most of them around Kat's age. I recognized one of them from Total Drama – a large goofball who had another vaguely familiar guy with him. He held up his hand for a high five, which his partner didn't return for a moment. "Don't leave me hanging!" I didn't remember their names, though.

I also recognized one of the others – a guy wearing a cowboy hat. He'd hosted these specials in the movie lot season for people who'd left the show – I think he was called Geoff or something. Oh well, I could write it down later.

Kat pointed out some other guy who'd been on the show, but I didn't recognize him. He must've been on one of the seasons I hadn't watched.

I looked around the rest of the train. The only people I saw who looked around my age were a pair of twins, one of which was puffing into an asthma inhaler. There were some teams I saw that looked a bit...not normal. I mean, there were these two dressed in matching outfits, and I thought they were wearing masks at first, because it had to hurt to keep such giant smiles on their faces. And there was another team that just looked plain scary. I swear, one of them had red eyes and the other had amber. That was pretty much the only colour they had.

Before reaching the train station, we were all called into a little backdrop to do a starting confessional and be told what our team labels were. We were the "Sisterly Strangers" (apparently, we would've just been the 'Sisters' but there was another sister team that already had that label).

"We barely ever see each other," Kat said, "So I figured that Corrine's twelfth birthday was a perfect time to find something fun that doubles as bonding time."

"We don't really know each other as sisters," I told the camera honestly. "And to be honest, there might be no better way to bond then to race around the world to get a million dollars."

Then the train doors opened, and we heard Don, the host, calling "Right this way, teams! Over here!"

He went through all the rules of the show with everyone. Each of us would take our travel tips from a box with Don's face on it, called the "Don Box". At the end of each set of challenges in a location, we would go to a "Chill Zone". The last team to make it there that episode was in danger of being cut. The first team to get to the final one would win the million dollars.

"One...two...three...RACE!" And everyone struggled to get to the first Don Box.

"Race on foot to the CN Tower." I heard one of the competitors say as Kat slammed down the dispensing button on the Don Box.

"The CN Tower...find the Don Box to get the next tip." Kat said as the first few teams began running.

The next Don Box said the task was an "Either-Or". I took the tip and read out to Kat that we had to do Stairs – climbing the one hundred and forty-four flights of stairs to the observation deck – or Scares, taking the elevator and then walking the perimeter of the tower on the outside. Once the teams had completed one of the tasks, a local would give us our next travel tip.

We were luckily, one of the first in, but most of the other teams discovered all the buttons had been pushed and left. Only one team remained – a guy and girl.

"Meh, this'll probably still be faster." the girl shrugged.

Kat nodded. "And we'll still have a lead on the teams that wait for the elevator." she said. "Come on."

The other team turned out to be the "Fashion Bloggers" - the girl was called Jen and the guy was called Tom. I wondered if they were dating for a moment.

Kat introduced us. "Hey, I'm Kat and this is my little sister, Corrine." She chatted to both of them pleasantly throughout the constantly stopping elevator. I mean, they didn't just talk to her. They both addressed a couple of comments to me, but it was pretty clear they didn't know what to say to a twelve-year-old (boy did I hope there was someone else closer to my age and I just hadn't noticed them).

We were the first teams at the top, true. But we got the advantage.

Jen took one look at the skywalk and exclaimed "We have to walk... _up_ _here?!"_ she positively screeched the last couple of words. Actually, both of them were ready to bail.

"We can't go out on that death walk!" Tom told the local waiting for the teams. "I am fashionably svelte! The wind'll blow me away!" And they wouldn't wear helmets, either, because they didn't want to ruin their hair.

So Kat and I took helmets and stepped out.

But it wasn't as easy as it sounded. The two of us were practically blown over, and we'd only made it a little way across before more teams arrived. First was a gender-equal team, younger than Kat – a girl with wavy blonde hair and a guy with a very open vibe who looked vaguely Asian. I didn't need to be told that they were friends, rather than family – the way they supported each other was nice, but they didn't seem to irritate each other, the way other teams did. Speaking of which -

"This is SO cool!" I heard a voice exclaim as I continued edging along, Kat half-pulling me while she kept her other hand on the building.

"Focus! This is life or death!" I heard another voice snap, and I turned to see a pair of Asian girls.

"Come on, look at what we're doing!" The first one said. "It's incredible! I feel so alive!"

"Yeah, make sure they put that quote on your gravestone." I heard the other girl mutter as she pulled her partner along. Now they were definitely sisters, the way they were talking to each other.

The wind was picking up, and I could only hear snatches of conversation as we kept edging along. I wasn't sure who it was talking half the time.

And even with that, we weren't the first in. Some of the people taking the stairs were faster, and so were the guy and girl who came out after us. By the time we got the travel tip, six teams had already passed us.

We had to take a zipline down to an airport. Our tip would be on the zipline, and we had to grab it on the way down.

"Reeni, you sit on my shoulders." Kat instructed. "You grab the tip while I hang onto the zipline, okay?"

I nodded. That made sense, and sure enough, I snagged the tip. Easy. But even so, we didn't get the advantage of the first six teams.

We were going to Morocco. Thing was, there were three planes. The first and last ones would take six teams, the second would take seven. So we just barely missed the first plane and had to wait while the first six teams got their tickets. They were: the guy and girl who were on the Skywalk, the team with those scary smiles, a couple who were clearly in Dating Heaven, two women in police outfits, that team of two guys who met on Total Drama, and a Father-Son team.

Yeah, that. The son in that team was probably the youngest person next to me on the show – he looked like he might be the same age as me, or a little bit older. I couldn't help wondering if I should speak to him or not, but I didn't. After all, twelve-year-old boys were majorly immature – a couple of years couldn't change that too much.

He caught me looking at him as his dad was booking the first flight. I quickly stuck my tongue out at him, and he returned the gesture. And then, just for a moment, we both grinned.

Luckily, Kat didn't catch me looking at him. She was too busy getting acquainted with two of the teams behind us, the Asian sisters and two girls that, to be honest, looked like hippies. One of them had dreadlocks, and the other was wearing earrings with the peace sign, but they looked friendly.

Kat started laughing at something one of the sisters had said. "Are you _serious?_ I can see why you thought me being called Kat was so funny!" She patted my shoulder suddenly. "By the way, this is Corrine. We're sisters, too." She looked down at me and introduced me to the two teams. According to her, the hippie-types were called Laurie (dreadlocks) and Miles (peace earrings), and the sisters were called Emma (the serious one) and Kitty (yeah, that's why she was laughing – Kitty and Kat). I jotted down the teams in the notebook, also making sure to find out their labels. Emma and Kitty turned out to be the team that were just plain "Sisters", and Laurie and Miles were known as the "Vegans".

Also on our flight were the Fashion Bloggers, another parent-child team, except this one was female and the daughter was a bit older, two guys that were probably just out of high school, and two girls that looked and talked like they'd had science textbooks for lunch and absorbed all the knowledge.

We were waiting at the airport as the first six teams boarded, anxious to get to Morocco and get to the first Chill Zone.

 **Well, first episode done. To be honest, I never really got into the challenge or episode itself. The returnees didn't do much, and I didn't get to know the characters too well. At this point, I NEVER would have predicted who the villains were going to be – in fact, at this point, I thought they were a gimmick team (although after Pahkitew Island's lineup, I could see them going far).**


	3. Chapter 3

**Episode 2! Now this is where the series started to become interesting. Thanks for reviewing, SilverWriter0927, Bloodylilcorpse, zorbo678, Gage the Hedgehog and StarHeart Specials.**

To be fair, we only had to wait half an hour to get into the sky behind the first plane, but it was crucial that we used our lead over the last six teams. I quickly checked out everyone's names who I didn't know. The Mom in the mother-daughter team was called Kelly, and her daughter was Taylor. The two girls were known as the Geniuses. One was called Mary, and the other was Ellody. Finally, the two guys were known as the "Rockers". The taller one with long hair told me his name was Rock, and his friend was called Spud.

I didn't have anyone to talk to on the flight. The person on there closest in age to me was Taylor, and she was at least sixteen and pretty unfriendly.

I made notes for all the names and teams I knew so far in my notebook. But I still didn't know over half of them. Kat helped me with the names of the Total Drama contestants, telling me that the giant goofball was Owen and his partner was Noah, and the guy who hosted the specials was called Geoff (at least I was right about that one). She also reminded me about the guy in the pointed cap and robe, whose partner wore a viking helmet. "He was on the last season. His name is Leonard."

I wrote that down, when Kat spoke. "You know, I think I might go and talk to Miles and Laurie. Do you mind if I leave you for a few minutes?"  
I raised my eyebrows at her. "I'm twelve, not two. This flight isn't going to land for at least another two hours. You can talk to whoever you want to."

So she left me to talk, but I was only alone for ten minutes.

"Hey. Corrine, isn't it?" A gentle voice interrupted my thoughts.

I looked up. "Oh, hey." It was Laurie, and I was a little surprised. Hadn't Kat left to talk to her team specifically?  
Laurie seemed to have guessed what I was thinking. "I figured you might want to talk to someone besides your sister." she said. "And she and Miles were deep in conversation and I got a bit left out, anyway." She smiled, so I grinned back. She did seem nice.

To be honest, after Kat who didn't seem to know how to treat me – ie: like an equal, not some twelve-year-old dummy – Laurie was great. She actually treated me like we were the same age. If I didn't get something she was saying, she'd explain it, of course, but she had a way of doing it that didn't make me feel stupid. Apart from that, she was really upbeat. I learned a lot about her – like how she and Miles wanted to win to help a ton of causes – saving several rainforests and species – and start their own charities. "We met at an anti-meat meeting, and when I suggested they should just be called 'ings', that was it – Miles and I love making up good slogans and charity names together." she told me, smiling.

I understood it, giggling a little bit. The thing was, even though the whole 'causes' thing was something that everyone at school preached, it doesn't sound preachy when Laurie talked about it. Maybe it was her tone, or that look in her eyes, how it was so obvious she believed in everything she was saying. She was really passionate about it.

"In fact," she confided when I said this out loud, "I can get pretty out of control if someone disrespects nature or does something I don't like. I try not to let myself feel negative emotions, but it's not always easy."

"Tell me about it." I agreed. "I like to be optimistic, but there's not always a lot to be optimistic about."

When we landed in Morocco, I was sort of sad to have to stop talking to her, and pair back up with Kat to start our next challenge... an "All In". We had to take a taxi to a spice kiosk. We had to choose five spices – preferably cumin, cinnamon, paprika, saffron and ginger.

We were actually really lucky. The Geniuses and the Vegans arrived around the same time as us, and we got there, worrying about knowing which spice was which, only to hear Laurie and Ellody pointing and reciting in complete unison "Cumin, cinnamon, paprika, saffron, ginger."

"That was suprisingly elementary." Ellody added as Kat tried to work out which ones they'd been pointing at.

"I know, right?" Laurie agreed.

Next, we had to ride a camel through the desert to find a restaurant...so we just grabbed a free camel and followed the last team who had left, who were far in the distance. As we did, Kat started talking strategy.

"I think we should try to find a team to form an alliance with." she said abruptly. "One of the strong teams. Someone who was on the first plane?"

"What about someone who was on ours?" I suggested. "Those Sisters seemed nice."

Kat shook her head. "I can already tell Emma's not into alliances, even if Kitty's interested."

"Well," I said, "What about Laurie and Miles?"

"No." Kat said firmly. "They're lovely people, but I think they'd drag us down more than help. A stronger team would help. Who was first down that zipline again?"

I paused, trying to remember who was first in line. "Not the slasher smilers, please!" I begged. "Those two freak me out."

Kat laughed. "All right, Reeni! Don't look so scared! But I'm sure they're not slashers – although their smiles do look a little strange. No, I was thinking about those two who were on the Skywalk. The two who seemed like good friends. What do you think?"

"Well..." I paused. The Father-Son team came into my head, and the moment I'd shared with the boy on that team.

"What about the team who-" But I had to stop when I saw that team up ahead. Their camel had collapsed, and now the father was pulling at it while the son was sitting on top, looking bored. As we passed, I pulled a face at him, like I was pointing out how we were beating them. He pulled one back, like he was telling me that it wouldn't be that way for long.

This time, Kat saw that exchange. "You've made a friend?"

"Um, no." I said in a sarcastic tone. "We've looked at each other, like, twice. I don't even know his name, and I doubt he knows mine. You know that – we haven't been apart since this race began!"

Kat looked offended. "No need to be so snippy. I was just asking. He looks nice, and I'm sure he'd like someone his own age to talk to."

We arrived at a restaurant with a Don Box. The challenge was a "Botch or Watch". We would give our spices to the chef, who would put it into a Moroccan stew, which one of us would eat.

"I'll eat it." Kat volunteered. "You don't like spicy food, do you?"

I frowned. "I didn't like it when I was ten." I said. "I don't mind it now."

"Oh." Kat looked puzzled. "I could've sworn you said it last time I was..." She sighed. "Sorry, Reeni, I need to remember that. Do you want to do this one? I'm sure there'll be others I can do later on."

I shook my head. "That's okay. You do it."

So she did. It was lucky we'd just copied the Geniuses and Vegans. There was one Kat hadn't been sure that they were pointing to – saffron – but we were sure of the others.

Around us, teams were all drinking. The girls in blue police outfits were nearest.

"Stop wiping your face and chug!" roared the bigger one. The skinnier one was sipping her stew and dabbing at her mouth every few sips.

"This is how civilized people eat." she informed her partner.

A few metres away, the smiler girl was eating. "A wonderful performance of grace and efficiency!" her partner exclaimed. "Bravo!"

Kat finally began her stew, and I watched her anxiously, listening to other snatches of conversation around us. I could hear Ellody and Geoff talking to each other about how they met their partners, Owen complaining about the wrong spices, Kitty cheering Emma on, and Jen reminding Tom to be careful not to let any of the stew spill and stain.

"Finished!" Kat finally cried. "We have to run to the Chill Zone!"

I looked around. There were only about eleven teams there. Some of them might not have made it there yet (I couldn't see the father-son team anywhere, and I knew we'd passed them), but I could see the police girls had gone, and the smilers had left. Probably several other teams had, too, although I didn't think which. I couldn't see Noah and Owen anywhere, either, so they'd probably gone.

"Let's go!" I said, and we set off, starting at a sprint, but slowing down once the restaurant was out of sight.

When we got to the Chill Zone, Don greeted us with "Seventh place!" The first six teams were already standing by, most of them smiling.

It turned out Geoff and his partner, whose name turned out to be Brody (the team known as the Surfer Dudes) were just ahead of us, and Ellody and Mary were just behind us.

I had to go through all the teams that had already arrived, so I could get to know them, so I asked the names of all of them. The team that had won were the ones we saw on the Skywalk. As it turned out, the girl was called Carrie and the guy was called Devin. They were both very friendly and open, and their label was the Best Friends.

The girls in police outfits only gave me their last names – the skinnier one was called Sanders, and the big loud one was MacArthur. It turned out that their label was the Police Cadets, so they weren't cops yet. Already, I was sure MacArthur was just in the business for the perks, while Sanders really seemed as if she took "to protect and serve" seriously.

I was a little shyer when talking to the slasher smilers, especially since the girl's smile was getting more forced by the second. When I mumbled something, the guy said "Speak up. I cannot hear you." but he gave me a more genuine smile. I noticed he had a very strong French-Canadian accent.

"Sorry." I said, louder. "I'm just trying to make sure I know who everyone is before the race gets vicious. So I was asking for your name and team label."

The guy replied that his name was Jacques, his partner was called Josee and their team name was the "Ice Dancers", and now that I thought about it, I had seen them somewhere before.

I whispered this to Kat. "I think they were on the Olympics! I remember watching them on TV – they were the figure-skating duo for Canada, right?'

Kat nodded, and whispered back "I watched that part. But if I remember, they got silver because he dropped her halfway through. They smiled the same way, though. Now I recognize them!" She paused, and whispered "Just don't tell them you remember that – it must've been humiliating, getting dropped at the Olympics. Such an important competition!"

"I wouldn't have said anything!" I said. "You didn't need to tell me not to."

The next team ahead of us was a team of two older guys who seemed to find my age funny (they asked me how old I was and when I said twelve, made a joke about how respect had skipped a generation, meaning I had it and last decade's generation didn't). They told me their names were Gerry and Pete, and that they were the "Tennis Rivals".

The Dating Heaven team turned out to be labelled "Daters". The girl was Stephanie, and the guy was Ryan. They were both really nice and friendly, although I had to say Ryan was more so than Stephanie.

Then, one by one, I got the names of the teams that arrived after us. Owen and Noah – known as the Reality TV Pros – were next after the Geniuses, followed by the Rockers and Fashion Bloggers. Then came the Sisters.

Emma was pretty concerned about their mediocre placing. "You have to start doing more!" she told her sister.

"I would _love_ to do more! Please!" Kitty sounded as if Emma was finding fault with something she'd made Kitty do – like only do something when she was told to.

Probably right, since the next words out of Emma's mouth were "I'll tell you when you can do more, okay? I will tell you."

Kitty gave a sigh.

Next were a pair of twins, who both cheered when they were told their placing. They were by far the easiest team to approach. The one with the helmet told me his name was Mickey, and the one without was called Jay. Their label was the "Adversity Twins", because they had such bad luck and ill health, and just getting up in the morning was a challenge of strength for them. I stood talking with them for a bit.

"We don't expect to be in the race that long." Jay admitted. "By lasting one challenge, we've already lasted past our physiotherapist's expectations."

"Not our doctor's, though." Mickey added. "I don't think we should expect to last any longer than that."

"Hey, if you can survive...how old are you guys?" I asked.

"Sixteen."  
"Well," I grinned, "If you can last sixteen years of adversity, I'm pretty sure you can survive a month of reality TV!"

Kelly and Taylor arrived, followed by the goths with the scream-inducing eyes. They actually seemed okay – their label was the "Goths", and when I asked their names, they told me they were Ennui (the guy) and Crimson (the girl). They weren't mean or scary, really – they just wanted to be left alone. Although that begs the question of why they signed up.

Next were a pair called the "Stepbrothers". I didn't like them at all, actually – one was called Chet, the other Lorenzo, and one of them (I think it was Lorenzo) teased me about my size. At this point, Chet shoved him and said "Picking on a little girl? Yeah, _that's_ smart."

"Yeah, at least _I_ know more than a little girl!" Lorenzo shot back, and they started fighting.

Laurie and Miles arrived after them, and I started getting worried. There were only two teams left, and one of them had the kid who was closest in age. So the only contact I'd get with him was a few faces?

Luckily, that wasn't the case.

The boy arrived, pulling his dad by the hand. When he got to the Chill Zone, he let go...and his dad, clearly not seeing right, kept on running. "Are there any trees?" he was asking as Don announced them in second-last place. "Warn me if you see a tree!"

"We're almost there, Dad!" the son called after him.

"How long are you gonna let him run for?" Don asked.

"I just needed a little break."

I couldn't help giggling. I quickly learned that the team's label was "Father and Son", and both team members were called Dwayne. The son was dubbed "Junior" by his dad, so all the racers referred to him as that, too. Including me, although I didn't talk to him yet.

The team kicked out were the LARPers, live action role players called Leonard and Tammy who seemed to think they actually were the characters they were playing. Yeah, someone who'd actually been on a reality show before was out first.

What a load to take in, huh? I thought so, too. I may have slept in a tent that night (that was one of the requirements to bring so we had somewhere to sleep each night – Kat had brought a three-person one for the two of us), but it could've been in a soundproof five-star hotel for all the difference it made. And I was really enjoying the race so far. I may not have signed up for it, but at the moment, I was loving it.

 **Corrine will talk to Junior in the next chapter, I promise. But you can probably tell which teams are going to be important in this story already. Any guesses as to which team is my favourite?**


	4. Chapter 4

**Right, let's keep going. Paris! Thank you for your reviews, SilverWriter0927, Gage the Hedgehog (they're actually not even in my top third of teams), Urshura Maria (me too), StarHeart Specials (not my favourite, but my favourites aren't actually that important in this fic) and Bloodylilcorpse (Ditto, but I agree – I would've liked them to stay longer).**

We started off again the very next morning. Since Carrie and Devin were first to the Chill Zone last time, they got the first travel tip. Carrie gave it to Devin, who said "Oh, wow! Looks like we're going to Paris!"

Now that was cool. Everyone seemed really excited about it, not just a few teams. Apparently, we had to take a moped to the airport, and then go to the Eiffel Tower.

The Fashion Bloggers in particular got really excited. They both started squealing as Kat and I jumped on our moped and zoomed off.

Okay, note one of the first things I learned about my sister: Never trust her behind the wheel. She drove like an escaped mental patient with nurses and a hitman on her trail. That said, we arrived at the airport fifth, just after the Daters and before the Tennis Rivals.

The Surfer Dudes actually crashed into the airport, still on their moped, and I heard them making a confessional then and there. Brody was talking all about how he once crashed into his neighbour's gazebo. They both started laughing, then Geoff spoke up. "Dude, we shouldn't laugh. Totally ruined that wedding." Then both of them called out "FREE CAKE!" and kept laughing. They seemed sort of like nicer, friendlier, and slightly more mature versions of the Stepbrothers. And I meant that in a good way.

Kat and I made a confessional while we were on the plane – we got to catch the first plane with eight other teams. The other nine had to wait for the next.

"I'm rethinking who we should make an alliance with." Kat said. "We definitely need one for at least a few challenges. I'm still thinking about the Best Friends. What do you think, Reeni?"

I paused, thinking about who I liked the most, as well as who was the strongest. "I like the Surfer Dudes, or the Reality TV Pros." I finally said. "They seem pretty cool."

Kat nodded. "They're nice. Now," she paused, grinning, "Who did you want to say?" I stared at her. She laughed. "Don't look so surprised. I could tell, you have a few teams you'd rather ally with."  
I looked away from the camera and mumbled "None of them are on this flight."

"So? Who are they?"

I listed three. "My first choices for an alliance would be the Sisters, the Vegans, or the Adversity Twins."

Kat patted my shoulder, like I was a puppy or something. "We can be friends with them outside of the challenges. We need to make proper game alliances too." She smiled. "Maybe you can make friends with that nice kid who's on that team with his dad."

"Stop teasing me!" I snapped, leaving the confessional backdrop.  
We landed at night, and this time, we were the last team to get a taxi and last to the Don Box. I took the tip.

"A Botch or Watch." I read. "My turn. I have to...draw a caricature of you."

So I started drawing carefully, and Kat posed, not in a very original pose, but in one that was easy to draw. As I finished her outline and started decorating her features, making them comical, I heard the Surfer Dudes finishing, and Owen saying to Noah "Awww, I think the way they support each other is beautiful. We should hug!"

"No."

"Please? What about a high-"

"Face forward!"

"I don't remember Noah being this bossy on the show." Kat murmured to me. "Then again, he wasn't on the first season for long, and Alejandro took on leadership for his team in the third, so he didn't have much to do."

"Was that the guy who walked on his hands for most of the season after the mutants were cleared from the island?" I asked. "He didn't seem much like a leader. All he did was get that girl – Heather, right? - eliminated and then he was pretty much a lone wolf."

Kat laughed. "If you'd seen the third season, you'd be glad he hasn't joined this cast. True, he wasn't that strong in the season you watched, but in the other one...he basically seduced and manipulated his way to the finale, and only lost because he fell in love himself. Plus, he was good at almost everything."

Before I knew it, several more teams were arriving (those from the second flight), and I was showing my picture to the local artist, just as I heard Kitty asking Emma if she was dating anyone new.

The artist accepted and gave me the next travel tip.

Kat read it over my shoulder. "We have to go to the catacombs and find a stack of Roquefort cheese wheels? Whoa."

We went down the steps cautiously, into a chamber full of skeletons. I shivered, and Kat put her arm around me, thinking I was scared. I wasn't, I was just a bit creeped out and cold. Really.

I pulled away. "Are you freaked out? Because it's freezing down here, but fascinating too."

I looked up, and I saw Kat try to hide a shudder. But she said "No. I'm a little cold, but it's not really scary, is it? These plague victims are fascinating, and it's not like we can catch anything from them."

It took ages to find the cheeses, but not many people had gotten there, thank goodness. According to a sign in there, we had to sail the cheese to an art gallery called the Louvre. We had to row really fast, but we even managed to pass the Stepbrothers, who were rowing out of time, not looking at each other.

Dwayne and Junior were just ahead of us. "Fifth!" Don said as they passed. We stepped onto the Carpet of Completion. "Sixth!" (The Police Cadets had won, followed by the Ice Dancers, Surfer Dudes and Best Friends).

Kat and I high-fived, although one thing I had to admit was that I had been annoyed by her during the challenge. Thinking I was scared in the catacombs! Oh yeah, as if.

At this point, my sister gave me a little push towards the Father-Son team. "Why don't you go talk to Junior? He'd probably want to talk to someone his own age, too."

"Kat!" I groaned. "Don't push me like that! We don't even know each other!"

I noticed Dwayne and Junior having a similar conversation. Junior's expression mirrored mine. But eventually, he approached me. "Um, hey." he said awkwardly.

"Hey." I managed a smile. There was a pause, before I added. "Awkward."

Junior laughed. "Yeah, it is."

"Let me guess..." I said. "Your dad said you should talk to me because I'm the only other kid on this show?"

Junior nodded. "And your...she's your sister, right?...thinks we should be friends because we're close in age?"

I nodded back, and we both laughed. "So...how old _are_ you?" I asked.

"Thirteen. Not exactly a kid. You?"

"I turned twelve the day before the race started." I admitted. I hesitated, but added "Do you think of me as a kid?"

"Are you going into sixth or seventh grade next year?" Junior asked.

"Seventh."

"Then 's only a year younger than me."

I'd admit, it was actually kind of nice to talk to Junior. We felt like we had similar places in the race – much younger contestants with a family member who underestimated us, treating us like kids when we were sometimes more mature than them. And Junior was by far the most mature thirteen-year-old I'd ever met. I mean, he was more mature than the Stepbrothers, who were seventeen (although around the same maturity as the Adversity Twins, who were the next youngest after Junior and I – sixteen). Maybe we would become friends. Besides, while I felt too shy to speak freely around the older ones, I felt like I could be myself around Junior, because we were on level ground. Not that I wanted to swear or anything (I actually didn't see the point of swear words), but I could be as sarcastic or sincere as I liked.

People continued arriving. The Stepbrothers were actually next.

It was up to the eleventh or twelth team when the Reality TV Pros came running up. "If it isn't Noah and his Ark." Don joked. "Twenty minute penalty."

"What? Why?" Owen exclaimed.

"Because the challenge was to sail the _cheese_ down the river."

"But it's inside me!" Owen protested. "I _am_ cheese!"

"That you are, cookie." Don said serenely. "Now step aside and hope you aren't the last to place."

I couldn't help giggling. I remembered one episode on the movie lot where Owen kept imagining his teammates as food, and them feeding him roast chicken-scented perfume and fruit-flavoured lip gloss when there was nothing else. He was eliminated by a teammate who'd just returned from the first season, if I remembered right.

Owen and Noah weren't quite last. Their penalty ended just as the Tennis Rivals arrived. Both teams dived for the carpet, and Don declared the Tennis Rivals the losers because Gerry's foot wasn't on the Carpet. The two elderly competitors were gone.

 **Development, development. Let's keep developing things next episode!**


	5. Chapter 5

**And here's the next episode! Thanks for reviewing, Gage the Hedgehog, Bloodylilcorpse, SilverWriter0927 (only a tiny bit), and Urshura Maria.**

I seriously don't remember the name of our next destination. It was somewhere south of Paris, skirting the Mediterranean coast, that's all I remember.

We had to wait longer than usual to get our travel tip, because a mime stole the Best Friends' tip and Devin had to chase him to get it back.

Most of us were waiting in line, so Dwayne and Junior were right in front of Kat and I. I was going to say something to Junior, but realized soon enough that he was too distracted.

He was staring at Carrie.

Now, I'm not sure why, but for some reason that made me feel weird. Like I already had claim, and I wanted him to look at me that way. I wasn't sure why. It wasn't like I had a crush on him, or anything. I mean, yeah, he was cute, I liked the way he dressed, he was fun to talk to, but I'd only really had one conversation with him. And it wasn't even about anything serious – just about how our family treated us like little kids and a few random things.

Anyway, there were a couple of introductions, and I began to doubt my bad feelings when Carrie didn't seem to notice anything out of the ordinary about the way Junior was looking at her. When he introduced himself, she just smiled in an ordinary way and said "Hi, I'm Carrie."

And seconds later, it was all broken when Dwayne shook her hand. "Nice to meet you. Dwayne Sr. I see you've already met Junior. This kid...what a great little guy!"

Junior's expression turned to annoyance and embarrassment. "Dad!" he hissed.

"I mean, he acts up sometimes, but that happens as..."

"C'mon, homie!" Devin called, having gotten the travel tip.

"All righty. Good luck to you." Carrie smiled at the team while they got their tip.

"Yeah, good luck with your new girlfriend." I whispered teasingly to Junior. His face went a little pink, but he retained enough composure to give me a suprisingly menacing glare for someone who was the colour of a cloud at sunset.

Kat and I took our tip, and got our location. "So...taxi?" I asked.

Kat nodded. There were millions of taxis passing outside the Louvre, but Kat argued against waiting there. "Most of them will be taken out here. We should go somewhere else where there will be less demand but the same amount of taxis. Let's try a block away."

I wasn't sure what to think of that reasoning. But for whatever reasoning, it worked in our favour, and we managed to catch the first train. Only just, though.

Still, it gave me another chance to talk to Junior, since he and Dwayne were on the same train. "Let me know if I start boring you." I told him. "When I start on a subject, I'm not likely to switch."

Junior shrugged. "A ton of girls at my school are like that. I don't really care whatever subject."

I smirked. "So we could talk about...I don't know, your crush on Carrie?" I kept my voice down, since the Best Friends were in the same carriage, but Kat (probably still thinking about allliances) was talking to them, anyway. Anyhow, it still made Junior blush, just a bit.

"Shut up about it!" he hissed. "I don't want her to know yet!"

I paused. "So...you are going to tell her, though? When?"

"When I've had the time to get to know her." Junior said firmly. "Besides, I kind of have to make sure it's okay with her partner if I want to ask her out."

When we got to the beach, the tip said we had another Botch or Watch. "Whoever didn't draw the caricature in Paris must go swimming with sharks." I read.

Kat began biting her lip, probably as a sign of nervousness. She didn't even look over my shoulder at the tip, like she had before. "Details?" she asked.

"You just have to grab a tip. It'll be on the dorsal fin of one of the sharks." I told her.

Kat took a deep breath. "All right. I can do this." She managed to smile at me. "At least I'm the one doing this. I'd be more scared if it turned out _you_ had to do this."

I scowled. "You don't know how fast I can swim! I'm pretty sure you're just as much at risk as I'd be."

Kat ignored that and waded out, ready to face the sharks. All I could do was watch as others dived in, like Dwayne, Brody, Josee, Devin, and a few others.

Still, I made a confessional on the beach. "Look, I may be the youngest competitor here, but that doesn't make me the weakest! We've arrived twice around seventh or sixth place. Not bad for a pre-teen and a young adult. I mean, look at the Adversity Twins or Vegans. Or even the Sisters. None of them have arrived that early once."

The second train arrived before anyone grabbed a tip. However, Kat was still one of the first out. As I watched her swimming towards shore, I heard MacArthur saying to Sanders "About time! My grandma can dog-paddle faster than you."

Finally, my sister reached the shore, and showed me the tip. "We have to build a sandcastle – a replica of the Palace of Versailles." she told me. "See, there's a little picture taped on the tip."

I frowned. "It's tiny! I wonder how it stayed on with it being dipped in water?"

Kat shrugged, but we grabbed the buckets around us and started sculpting sand.

Everyone from the first train was done with the sharks by the time the last train arrived, except for the Surfer Dudes. Brody was still swimming around, while Geoff stood on shore, watching anxiously.

"Let's build it small." I suggested. "Then we won't have to add so many details."

Kat shook her head. "Medium, just in case. We might need to add as many details as possible."

I didn't argue, although I could hear other people saying the opposite. MacArthur and Emma both ordered their partners to make their sandcastle big. Other people just got to work. Mary and Ellody were writing out a bunch of data on the sand that was all planning for theirs.

Dwayne started arguing with the sandcastle judge when he didn't like the first attempt at their castle.

We worked hard, and just while Kat was carefully smoothing out the details, I heard a cry as Mickey fell over with the weight of a bucket of sand. I ran over to help him up, and suggested "Maybe you should just sit if you're going to lift anything that heavy. Good luck, guys." Then I ran back to Kat.

"Get the judge." she said. "I think we're done."

How would you feel if you were the first to finish a challenge? It feels pretty damn good. I mean, actually, Dwayne and Junior were finished just after us, and as we heard them leaving, we also saw Kitty looking over at their castle. "Aww, look at the cute little castle!"

We had to take a boat to a dock in Iceland.

"Now that we're alone, I think we should keep talking strategy." Kat said. "We need to narrow down our alliance choices."

I sighed. "Meaning Brody and Geoff are off the list after this challenge?"

"Not exactly." Kat said. "More that after that whole thing with the cheese, Owen might be a liability if we tried to make an alliance with them. But I think the Surfer Dudes will be eliminated anyway. The Best Friends are probably our safest bet."

"The Father-Son team is pretty strong." I pointed out. "What's wrong with them?"

Kat laughed. "Are you sure you're not saying that just because you're becoming friendly with Junior?" she teased. "I saw you two talking on the train. It's adorable, actually!"

"Stop teasing me!" I protested. "No, but they finished this challenge early, and came in pretty early last challenge!"

Our boat went pretty slowly. We didn't notice the two boats passing us until seconds before we reached the dock. Ahead of us, Dwayne and Junior were standing by, and Don was congratulating the next team.

"Jacques, Josee, you've come in first!" Both Ice Dancers were blowing kisses. "I expected more insanity. Glad to see you're keeping it professional."

Don also gave us a friendly smile. "Sisterly Strangers, you're in second place." Kat and I grinned, but then I sent Junior a sympathetic look, knowing that their team had a penalty for some reason.

Jen and Tom arrived next, but they got a penalty for taking a yacht to the beach. I didn't even ask, but I whispered to Kat "They've placed pretty well so far. Why don't we ally with them?"

Kat paused. "You may have a point. Let's see where the Best Friends come in and talk about it tonight."

The Best Friends came in third-to-last, but it was probably because of their boat. But surprisingly, the Surfer Dudes weren't the last.

The Geniuses hadn't left the beach by the time everyone else had reached the carpet, and Don took a helicopter back to tell them they had been eliminated.

Kat and I didn't talk about alliances that night, though. I got talking to the Adversity Twins. Apart from Junior, they were the only people in the race that didn't remind me of how I was younger than everyone else. Sure, they were sixteen, four years older than me, but they didn't act that way. And they admitted that they weren't very comfortable with most of the other teenagers in the race.

"We're so much weaker." Jay said. "I mean, it's a miracle that we even survived this long, but we're still sort of nervous of some of the others. They're all so confident and loud."

"Not all of them." I argued. "The Vegans are very quiet. The Sisters aren't really loud, and I'm sure there are others."

Mickey smiled at me. " _You're_ not, Corrine. Thanks for helping me up in the challenge, by the way."

I shrugged. "I figured I could afford to. Kat and I were nearly done with our sandcastle. And I'd rather you guys stayed around for awhile, because...well, I like talking to you two."

The three of us chatted for a long time about what it was like to be underestimated versus what it was like to really be that weak. Jay admitted that he was basically just weak and had Wile E Coyote bad luck, while Mickey was rife with medical conditions and mostly ill, with having the same terrible luck, although to a lesser degree than Jay to make up for it. I felt really sorry for them, but to be honest, they'd placed around twelfth or thirteenth every challenge so far, so they would last longer than a week at this rate. They'd already lasted five days.

But as for Kat and I, we had to last right through to the end.

 **I felt like the Adversity Twins were nice guys and Corrine would enjoy their company. They don't do much and I figured I could give them a chance in this story. This is actually going to result in a plot point that causes a change in eliminations.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Iceland. I've never been there, but if its name describes the weather, I might not ever go. Thanks for reviewing, Gage the Hedgehog, SilverWriter0927, Bloodylilcorpse and the guest reviewer (Crimson and Ennui, definitely, although Nemma's OK – it was good for Emma's character development but made Noah less...well, Noah-like).**

Starting out in second place was less fun than you'd expect, what with the first place team and their arrogance. We had to take a bus to a geyser field, and a ton of us queued up behind the Ice Dancers. We would've been friendly, but the first reaction we got was Jacques snapping at us and several others "Don't even _think_ about getting on the bus before us!"

MacArthur, who was right behind us, spoke up. "You can't stop me from thinking it. Get out of my head!" I sort of wished I'd been able to say that. But being twelve had disadvantages like that. There was no way I could speak to an adult like that. Well, okay, it wasn't like Jacques was an authority figure or anyone important (no, I don't care that he competed in the Olympics), but I couldn't see myself speaking to him on an equal level, the way MacArthur had.

They would've started arguing properly if Noah hadn't spoken. "Uh, guys? The bus?" And everyone started struggling to get on first.

The Don Box gave us an All-In. "Broken Icelandic Telephone." Kat read out. "We have to go to a speaker and hold down the button. The speaker will give us a recording of Don saying 'please give me my next travel tip' in Icelandic. Then we have to run through the geyser field and say it to a local. If we get it wrong, we have to go back and listen to it all over again."

We were third to the speaker, after the Police Cadets and Father and Son (although Dwayne insisted he remembered the sentence and didn't listen to it after the Cadets had left). Kat pressed the button, and Don's voice came out. It sounded like "Vin salma yast gava mer mina travel aubending."

We repeated it to each other to make sure we remembered it, and then went through the geyser field. This proved to be harder, but that might've been because of the cries of everyone around us. I swear, I saw a camera lens break from Jen's screams. Also, Owen got stuck in a geyser, and several people, including me, got caught in a geyser blast.

Kat caught me before I fell to the ground. "Gotcha!" she said reassuringly. "You're soaked."

I shrugged. "Let's get to the local before it happens again."

And we did. We spoke in unison: "Vin salma yast gava mer mina travel aubending."

The woman in the swan dress smiled and gave us the tip we asked for. "Thank you!" we called, running to catch the first plane out.

There was no need to worry. The plane wouldn't depart until six teams boarded, and we were fourth. The Ice Dancers, Vegans and Goths were already there. Soon enough, the Fashion Bloggers and Police Cadets had arrived, and we left.

The Vegans were meditating, and I looked up, wondering how it worked. I mean, what was meditation, really? And how did it help in everyday life?

As I mulled over this thought, Laurie opened her eyes, and saw me staring. She smiled. "Were you watching us?" she asked.

"I don't know much about meditation." I admitted. "I was just wondering how it works."

"Do you want me to teach you?" Laurie offered. "Miles taught me when we first met, years ago, and I find it really helps me with stress and keeps me calm."

Considering how stressful the competition was, maybe it was a good idea, so I nodded. Laurie spent most of the plane ride teaching me the position, and trying to help me learn how to completely keep my mind cleared, concentrating on nothingness and impermanence. After I'd started to master it, there were only ten minutes of the plane trip left, and I meditated on my own.

Kat tapped me on the shoulder as the plane touched down. "Come on! Quick!"

As we ran to the next Don Box, she asked "So what were you doing on the plane? I was talking to the Fashion Bloggers. I noticed you and Laurie talking."

"She was teaching me how to meditate." I said happily. "It apparently helps with stress, and on this show, I have a feeling I'm gonna need all the help with stress I can get."

Kat shrugged as we waited for the last team to grab their tip. "Meditation never worked for me." she said. "I've tried it, but it felt too much like hard work and no benefit."

She slammed her hand down on the button, and I took the tip. "It's an Either-Or. Eat an Icelandic Thanksgiving feast or chip out a fossil."

Most of the other teams were getting pickaxes. "Maybe we should do Feast." Kat said thoughtfully. "No one else is doing that."

I frowned. "Think again." Crimson and Ennui had just watched everyone else getting pickaxes and walked off to do the eating challenge.

Okay, so the feast looked disgusting. I flatly refused to eat the sheep's head, but the rest of it wasn't that bad. It was tough, though, and Kat eventually made me eat one of the eyes. Oh, was that ever disgusting, especially the texture. It took us ages.

By the time we'd finished, a bunch of other teams had showed up, including the Rockers, Reality TV Pros, Mom and Daughter, and Daters. We were pretty slow with it, and eventually ended up in ninth place, just behind Dwayne and Junior.

The Goths had won, and I should note here that the Fashion Bloggers came in second.

"I think you're right." Kat whispered to me. "Tom and Jen would be a good team to ally with. I'll talk to them tonight a bit more and suggest it."

We were just in time to witness the worst conflict to happen within the first five episodes. Just as we arrived with our empty platter, another team had stepped up behind us, seeing the fossil the last team had brought.

"Wait! That's our fossil!" Laurie had spoken. Miles was with her, both of them scowling.

Junior's expression became dismay. "I _knew_ something was wrong!"

Dwayne sighed and began pushing the fossil back to them. "Fine, here you go-"

"No sharesies!" Don interrupted. He looked at the Vegans. "You'll have to try again."

"But-" Laurie began.

"Don't care." Don said firmly.

"But-"

"Don't care."

"But-"

"Don't care."

And then, I saw a side to Laurie I'd never seen before – something I'm glad that I never saw again after that day. Her eyes flashed, and her face screwed up horribly.

"THE GODDESS OF KARMA WILL GET YOU FOR THIS!" she screamed at Dwayne. Even Miles looked a little scared of her.

Although, that was nothing compared to her own expression when Laurie said they would have to do the Feast, since they couldn't get another fossil done in time. I'll admit, Laurie shocked me too. I mean, their title was _Vegans._ It was against their principles to eat meat or dairy.

Meanwhile, Kelly and Taylor had arrived, but were waiting out their penalty. After getting the Icelandic sentence wrong the first time, Kelly had gone back through the geyser field while Taylor waited. They got an hour's penalty, since Taylor was supposed to have gone back too. And who got the blame?

"This is all your fault! You're the mom, or whatever. You can't just let me do anything I want because I'm beautiful! Come on, act like a parent, take charge!"

And when Kelly tried, Taylor ignored her.

"Imagine if I tried to act like that to our mom!" I whispered to Kat. "She'd kill me."

"I'm dying to give Kelly some advice." Kat muttered back. "Why she doesn't just punish Taylor is beyond me."

Laurie and Miles, despite their efforts, still came in last.

"But this is a non-elimination round!" Don said cheerfully. "You get to stay!"

Oh, the look on Laurie's face. Her eyes blazed all over again. "I ATE ANIMALS _FOR NOTHING?_!"

I could never have predicted her jumping on Don and attacking him as viciously as she did at that moment. Meanwhile, Miles kept getting sick. She was almost sick on Spud's shoes, in fact.

I had planned to talk to the twins more that night, but Kat and I both stayed with the Vegans that evening, trying to comfort them. Miles barfed so many times that Kat told her she was sure that any animal entrails she'd eaten were out of her, which was a minor comfort. Kat spent most of the time supporting Miles, who probably did need a bit more support.

Laurie didn't barf once, but after her one vicious attack on Don, she stopped fighting and spent most of the night in tears. Since Kat was occupied, I spent the night letting her cry on me. She hung onto me like she was a little girl and I was her favourite doll. Luckily, she seemed to have gotten all her tears out by midnight. I was getting tired!

Kat had long since gone to sleep, since Miles had lost most of her energy and fell asleep quickly enough. But I couldn't get to sleep while Laurie was still crying.

"Feel any better?" I whispered after her tears subsided.

"A little." Laurie sniffled. "It's not going to take one night to clear my conscience, though. I broke every rule of morality today."

In the end, it took another hour until we both fell asleep that night, but when I woke up, I was still playing doll to Laurie. That morning, for a moment, I almost felt like Laurie was more of a big sister to me than Kat.

 **Plot point alert! Although I won't tell you how long it lasts. Yet.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Okay, Brazil. Thanks for reviewing, SilverWriter0927, Gage the Hedgehog, and Bloodylilcorpse.**

For the first time, Kat and I got stuck on the second flight out instead of the first. Dwayne and Junior were the last team on the first flight out.

This was actually both a curse and a blessing in disguise. The flight was known as the "milk run", which meant we shared the space with cows and goats. But as it turned out, the first plane rolled over something sharp and got a flat tire, so the teams that got that plane had to wait while we took off.

The Vegans were stressing about their performance in Iceland, although Miles seemed a lot better and Laurie didn't seem homicidal or near tears any more. When I passed them, I heard them agreeing that "what happens in Iceland stays in Iceland".

Meanwhile, I chatted to the Adversity Twins again. They were worried that their lactose intolerance might be set off by being near milk-giving animals, so I tried to take their minds off it. You know, power of the mind and all that. If they kept thinking about their lactose intolerance, chances are they'd feel lousy without any effect from the cows. If they didn't think about it but were affected, it might be less of an effect than if they were thinking about it.

"If you finish this challenge, you'll have officially lasted more than a week, right?" I said. "Your doctor is _so_ close to being wrong!"

Both of them smiled sadly. "I think we'll be eliminated soon." Jay admitted. "I hope not, though."

"Me too." Mickey agreed. "I feel like we're getting somewhere, like we have a chance to win."

They actually didn't seem to notice until after we got off the plane and got travel tips. I was still talking to them when Kat pushed the button down on the Don Box.

"Botch or Watch." Kat told me. "Reeni?...Corrine!" She pulled me aside and whispered "Focus! I know the twins are really nice, but you can talk to them after the challenge."

"If they're still here!" I whispered back. It wasn't a nice thing to say, but I had to face it – the twins had so many problems, it was a miracle they survived life. I hoped they'd stay for some time yet, but I was prepared for anything to cause them to come in last.

Kat didn't argue, but sighed and said "It's your turn, anyway. You need to reach into an oven mitt full of venomous bullet ants to get our next tip."

While Laurie stepped up first, Mickey started telling the camera a story about how he's immune to venom after getting bitten by enough creatures, and he and Jay tried to high five, missing each other's hands. "We don't high five much, it's pretty new to us."

I stepped up to them. "High-fiving is easy. Thing is, one of you should keep their hand still while the other slaps it. Jay, hold up your hand. Mickey, high-five it."

They did, and it worked. Then they both high-fived me, and since the Vegans had left, I went up next. So I stepped up to the mitt and stuck one hand in. I couldn't help grimacing as the ants swarmed all over my hand, biting, but I got the tip and gave it to Kat with my swollen hand.

She frowned as she read it. "I think it means we have to cross a chasm by swinging on a vine. Then we'll find a pile of coconuts and we'll have to crack them open until we find one with a tip inside."

To be honest, after the Skywalk, any kind of challenge that risked falling from a great height was easy. We used the same method as we did on the zipline – Kat took the vine, and I was on her shoulders.

Behind us, the Cadets and Stepbrothers went through, although the Vegans had disappeared. Luckily, the pile of coconuts had hammers around to crack them.

Less luckily, there were millions of them, and there were only sixteen teams left! How were we supposed to find a tip when there was only that many?

That might explain why Kat and I, who were about in first place by that time, only found one around the time the teams from the delayed plane were coming in. Well, the Ice Dancers had arrived at the coconuts. They still had those smiles on their faces as they began cracking the coconuts. Kat and I just ran for it, reading the tip as we went. It said that we had an All-In – one team member would make a headpiece, and the other a tail, for some Brazilian festival. A local had to approve it.

"You know, Reeni, I'm starting to understand what you meant about those two." Kat confided.

"What?" I asked.

"Their faces. I thought I was just imagining it for a while, but the way they smile...it's a little disconcerting, even menacing." she admitted. "Have you spoken to the team yet?"

I shook my head. "Not since I got their names. I don't think they'd be interested in talking to me. When I actually asked their names, Josee barely even looked at me. And I'm not sure I want to talk to them, either."

"That doesn't mean anything." Kat said in a slightly condescending tone. "First impressions can be entirely wrong, and they don't seem like a mean team, despite their smiles. Certainly not the way Taylor is."

I scoffed. "Well, at least Taylor isn't scary."

"Maybe I'll talk to them." Kat thought out loud. "Maybe they won't seem so...anxiety-inducing if we get to know them."

When we got to the materials, Kat worked on the headpiece, and I made the tail. I wasn't that good at art, but she was brilliant. Over on one side, MacArthur was arguing with the local because her costume wasn't approved, and the Sisters were talking about an alliance with the twins. I noticed Mickey's eyes were fixed on Kitty. Did he have a crush on her?

Understandable, I guess. I didn't know Kitty very well, but she seemed friendly and not that competitive. In complete contrast to Emma, who was really serious about the race.

The local didn't approve our costume first time. She took one look at my messy tail and gave us a thumbs down. Kat helped me clean it up, and the local had only approved one other team between tries – the Goths (several teams had already gone by then), with Crimson wearing a black version of the ensemble.

The last tip said we had to take a hang glider to the beach where the Chill Zone was. Like we had for the zipline and the vine, we took up the same positions. I sat on Kat's shoulders and she hung on to the hang glider, although this time I leaned forward and clenched the rail too.

We still didn't exactly come in first. But fourth was pretty good. And to be honest, seeing who won was all worth it.

The Vegans.

Yep, they'd won, and boy did they look happy. The Ice Dancers and Goths were second and third. Kat glanced at me and then decided to attempt talking to the Ice Dancers as she'd mentioned, while I went up to the Vegans.

"Awesome win!" I smiled at them. "To be honest, it's probably the best thing that could happen right now."

"Thanks, Corrine." Laurie smiled. "Good work with you guys, too. I'm feeling better about our chances now. Last night, I was ready to give up, but now I'm glad we stayed in."

"Me too." Miles admitted. "I felt terrible at the end of the last challenge, but getting first place makes me feel as if the universe has given us a second chance. Like we don't have to feel guilty over our moral lapse."

I gave her a puzzled look.

"Like we don't have to brood over doing that Icelandic feast." Laurie said. "We can move on, accept it was wrong of us, and vow not to let our competivity overcome our moral standards again."

"I for one am glad you two are still in." I grinned.

The Rockers were cut from the race, half an hour later. To be honest, I wasn't exactly happy to see them go, but I didn't know them well enough to miss them.

 **Yes. I feel the Vegans could have developed more if they'd stayed longer in the race. You also probably noticed that I'm putting emphasis on a friendship developing between Corrine and Laurie. This will come into play later on.**


	8. Chapter 8

**Ah, Transylvania. Where no one talks like Bela Lugosi. No, seriously, that Dracula accent is supposed to be fake. Thanks for reviewing, Bloodylilcorpse (and that's why they'll never be my laptop wallpaper), Silver Writer 0927, StarHeart Specials, RainbowMonkeys and Gage the Hedgehog.**

The twins' short-lived alliance with the Sisters didn't work out, but I was right about Mickey. When I talked to them that night, he did mention how nice and "cute" Kitty was. It turned out that Taylor had tried to cut in front of him during the Either-Or and Kitty had told her off, which is how it began.

I also talked to Junior again. Kat was starting to annoy me more and more, not really listening to me that much, and he was the only one I could talk to that understood. When I told him about my conversation with her about the Ice Dancers, he told me about something that had happened.

"Today, when we got a tip by the coconuts, they chased us." he said. "One of them pinned Dad down...the girl...and the other one started chasing me. Luckily, we kept our tip, since the girl threw a coconut and it hit him, then cracked and it had a tip inside it."

"Was it kind of scary?" I asked. "Those two chasing me sounds scary."

"Not really." Junior tried to sound casual. "I mean, it's not that I wanted to get pinned down, but it's not like they were going to do anything. We just didn't want to lose our tip that we got fair and square."

Kat reported to me that she wasn't sure about the team, even after talking to them. "Well, I'm not too keen on Josee." she admitted. "Jacques seems all right, for the most part. Although I think part of the reason they weren't happy was because they didn't come in first. They see the first three places as medals, and...well...as it turns out, they're very sensitive about the idea of getting silver, bronze, or anything less than gold."

I meditated that night, hoping it would help me get my mind clear so I could sort my thoughts out. It worked, sort of.

First, I needed to keep a clear mind for the rest of the competition. Even though Kat was treating me like a child, she probably didn't mean to. I promised myself that I wouldn't lose my temper with her.

Second, I had decided that it was wisest to make an alliance with the Vegans. They were trustworthy, friendly, and had just won a challenge. Kat couldn't argue with that.

And third, and possibly something I never would've thought of if I hadn't cleared my mind, I felt something other than friendship for Junior.

That's how I started off the next day. Everything normal happened. We grabbed our travel tip, and took the bus the other teams were taking to the airport (we even managed to grab the front seat, so we'd be out first). Our next stop was Transylvania, Romania. While we waited for the bus, we saw the Ice Dancers get out, and Jacques spoke to the camera. Josee started throwing things, and I could hear her screaming. I even caught sight of her face, and although it wasn't as scary as the way she smiled, it was still pretty frightening.

Kat was watching, too. "That's weird behaviour." she commented. "How old is Josee again? Definitely too old to be throwing temper tantrums."

I rolled my eyes. " _Twelve_ is too old. I think I heard Emma telling Kitty not to throw a temper tantrum in the first episode. And that was only because Kitty questioned Emma not letting her guess which spice was which."

"Too old or not," Kat smiled at me, "I'm really glad I've got you for my partner, Reeni. From Jacques' reaction, it looks like this isn't the first time Josee's thrown a tantrum. You're more mature than she is!"

I smiled back. One of our real sisterly bonding moments. I felt very close to Kat at that moment.

Then I changed the subject. "So, Transylvania? Isn't it supposed to be where Count Dracula lived?" I asked.

"Yeah, but it's not like vampires exist." Kat laughed. "You know that, right?"

And...closeness gone. I forced a laugh, biting back a huff of annoyance. "Of course vampires don't exist! I'm not a little kid." I paused, and added "I don't believe in werewolves either, by the way. Mickey and Jay do, though, and they're four years older than I am." This was true – Mickey had confided that werewolves were his worst fear, and Jay was not exactly unafraid of them.

We were second in line to get our tickets. Well, third, actually, but that was only because Stephanie came flying to the ticket desk and cut in front of us (Kat later told me that she'd heard Stephanie ordering Ryan to throw her to the front, since they were last in line). Still, at least we were on the first flight.

Our seats were opposite the Goths', who were looking slightly different to how they usually looked. I mean, still scary with their makeup and eyes, but it looked as if they were only just keeping their expressions deadpan, as if they wanted to smile – or at least, look happy – but wouldn't. I eventually went further up the plane, since Junior was on the same flight, but none of the other teams I'd gotten friendly with had (somehow the first placing team ended up on the second flight). We couldn't talk embarrassing parents, since Dwayne was there and didn't leave, but we still found a lot of safe subjects to talk about. Mostly school stuff. To my shock, I was going to the same junior high school he was at after the summer!

"So, guess we live close to each other." I smiled. "At least I'll know someone there, even if you'll be too cool to talk to a lowly seventh-grader."

Junior shrugged. "I might talk to you. But only if my friends aren't around." We shared a smile.

When we landed in Transylvania, it was dark and drizzling with rain. Our tip told us to go to Dracula's castle, which was just up the road from the airport.

Most of people looked a bit scared (Dwayne tried to hide behind Junior, Brody actually jumped into Geoff's arms, and even the Ice Dancers looked scared.

"Wow." I heard Crimson say. For once, her voice had some emotion – she sounded awed.

"Let's get going." Kat said decisively. We ran for it, before any other team, in fact, although there were some closer behind. I heard voices behind us.

"Move it!" that was definitely MacArthur, close.  
"Oh, sorry, I didn't see you there!" The voice was quieter, but clear and poisonously sweet. Definitely Josee.

"Officer down! Shots fired!" MacArthur again.

Finally, the voices faded, and we were the first to the Don Box. But before Kat could push the button, a surprisingly small form aggressively shoved her aside and took the first tip.

"It's an All-In." It was Stephanie, with Ryan right beside her. She cuddled up to him. "Aww, I love it when we get to do things together."

Ryan gave us a tense apologetic smile over her shoulder. We smiled back and I took the next tip, reading it.

"Oh no!" I groaned. "Of all the All-Ins!"

"What?" Kat asked, reading over my shoulder.

"We have to find a coffin in the castle, and then you have to get in and I have to drag you to the graveyard and into an open grave. It's because I took the tip!"

Ryan and Stephanie were reading it too. Kat sighed and managed to smile. "At least you're not the only one dragging more weight." she whispered. "Ryan's all muscle and Stephanie has to drag him. He must weigh more than I do."

But there was no time to talk. We had to get to the castle.

After a few minutes of wandering around, we ran into two more teams. "Then he screamed, 'dude, that moose doesn't need mouth-to-mouth, it's just a head on the wall!'"

It was Brody talking, and his team was with the Sisters. He, Geoff and Kitty all burst out laughing, but Emma scowled.

Kat smiled at the teams. "Hey, guys. What's going on?"

"We were just about to split up." Emma said quickly. "These two were just going."

This was clearly on the spot, but the guys seemed okay with it, considering that they would cover more ground that way. We kept going, and eventually we found a coffin in a dusty room with a bunch of other coffins scattered around. As I began pulling at the coffin with Kat inside, the Goths came in, taking a good look at the coffin they were going to use. As I left, I heard Crimson say in an ominous voice "Take me to the grave digger." before Ennui closed the coffin she was in.

When I got to the graveyard, I was between Junior, who was pulling Dwayne's coffin (we exchanged sympathetic smiles) and Josee, who was flipping Jacques' coffin like crazy. I could hear him calling to her to slow down, sometimes lapsing into French.

We weren't the first to get a tip, not by far. It took ages to find an empty grave, and Kat felt heavier by the second. It had been fairly easy for a little while, since she wasn't all muscle like Ryan, or all fat like Owen – she was athletic, so she wasn't too heavy. Probably her weight would be between (at least somewhat) petite Stephanie and average-sized Carrie.

By the time anyone got tips, a few of the teams from the second flight were in there. Just as I found an open grave, I heard Josee asking someone "Weren't you two on the second flight?"

And as I pulled the coffin further, I heard Jacques, now less muffled, saying "Is that the grave digger?"

The next voice was Lorenzo's. "Well, he isn't the ice-cream man!"

And as I finally got it done, Owen's muffled voice. "There's ice-cream? Let me out!"

So we were fourth to get the tip. "How are you?" I asked Kat.

"A little bit bruised, but otherwise fine." she answered. "Don't worry, I'm a lot less hurt than I imagined I'd be. You did great."

"What did you expect?" I teased. "I'd keep flipping the coffin over and over like Josee was? Jacques was telling her to slow down the whole time!"

Anyway, we had to ride on horseback to a gymnasium, and we were second there, only to the Ice Dancers (we were third to get the horses and passed the Stepbrothers).

Kat took the tip. "A Botch or Watch, and it's my turn." She looked inside the gymnasium. "Huh, looks simple enough." she grinned. Although when we went in and saw the way Josee was breezing through the challenge, she made it look even simpler. It was just a simple gymnastics course – a balance beam, a springboard and a jump over a horse – then you had to land on your feet. I could've done it. I was good at gymnastics.

But Kat? Well, once Josee was done, she did fine on the beam and the jump, but didn't land on her feet first time. By that time, a couple of teams had caught up and she had to wait until Chet was on the second obstacle and Owen was waiting, before she could try again. This time, though, she managed it.

As we left, Owen had reached the horse, and was still on the springboard (it wouldn't propel his weight over the horse. Emma ran up, sprang on top of Owen, somersaulted over the horse and landed gracefully, and...well, Kat nudged me and pointed to Noah, who was staring at her like he'd never seen anything that amazing.

But we had to run. Actually, after that display, both the Reality TV Pros and Sisters only just beat us to the carpet. The Ice Dancers had already shown up, so we ended up in fourth place, not bad at all.

We hadn't seen the Vegans at all during the challenge, so it was a relief to see them turn up in eighth place, just before the Surfer Dudes. The Goths had arrived a few placements ago, but Don had given them a penalty. Apparently they'd taken turns in the coffin, but I heard Crimson's on-site confessional. "Totally worth it."

I'd talked to Kat about the alliance idea and maybe joining forces with the Vegans again, and since they'd made it into first place once, she agreed. I nudged her and we went over.

"Hey." I grinned. "Glad to see you guys made it."

"Thanks, Corrine." Laurie smiled back. "It's nice to see you guys, too."

"Anyway," Kat said, "There was something I wanted to discuss with you guys. Strategically. Reeni and I have been talking, and we wondered...how do you feel about the idea of alliances?"

Both looked a bit uncomfortable. "I don't know." Miles spoke up. "Isn't it a little strange to work with people you're competing against? It's like we're turning against you if it get down to just us."

"Does it mean that when we don't see it as that?" I spoke up. "And it's not that easy to betray us when voting isn't allowed. It's not like all-for-one and one for all. If we end up both being in last place, we'll just have to work it out ourselves. Please? We want both our teams to stay in the game for at least a little longer. And we can still be friends, right?"

Miles and Laurie exchanged glances. Finally, it was Miles who spoke. "All right. We can try, at least. Deal." The four of us each shook hands.

Well, we hadn't expected them to be unsure, but then, we were friends with them. And maybe I could ask them both more about meditation, because it was really helping me so far. Plus, there were certain things I wasn't comfortable with talking about to Kat. Stuff like feeling like I wanted to be more than friends with Junior. I knew Kat would tease me, yet when I thought about talking about it to Laurie...I felt like she might understand me better.

The Fashion Bloggers, surprisingly, were the ones to be kicked out. It was between them and the Daters, and they were just too slow. However, Don informed them that the fez hats they were wearing were very in. And they both exchanged smiles as they left.

 **So the Sisterly Strangers finally have their alliance! I like the Fashion Bloggers, too, but they didn't have any more importance to my plot, so they had to go early, as usual. Sad. I like them a lot, but I'm thinking about doing something else with the Daters later down the line (which is instead of making Stephanie and Devin feel jealous of there being a possibility of Ryan/Carrie), so I had to keep them.**


	9. Chapter 9

**Hawaii! Aw, I can't wait to go there next June. Thanks for reviewing, Silver Writer 0927, Gage the Hedgehog, Bloodylilcorpse (the Goths are my second favourite team...Ennui is also my second favourite TD guy overall) and RainbowMonkeys (wasn't that what I said early last chapter?)**

It was nice to be one of the earliest ones to get our travel tip. But the thing is, we had to take a donkey cart to Bucharest Airport, and each of the carts took three teams. So while the Ice Dancers, Reality TV Pros and Sisters went off in the first one, Kat and I had to take the second one. The Stepbrothers were with us, along with Kelly and Taylor.

As we set off, Chet and Lorenzo started throwing stupid insults at each other again. Then Taylor turned to me and said "You know, you are _so_ lucky to have a sister to do this stuff with."

Kat spoke before I could. "I think we're lucky, too. It's great that we finally get time to bond. But I bet it's fun doing this kind of thing with your mom, like you are."

"Not really." Taylor said bluntly. She turned back to me pointedly. "So wait, how old are you again? Like, compared with your sister?"

"She's eleven years older than me. I'm twelve." I told her, and then added in a whisper "Just between you and me, she treats me like a little kid. It can get really embarrassing sometimes."

Taylor didn't bother lowering her voice as she said "Oh, that's just how it is with Mom." She threw a scornful look at Kelly (who pretended not to notice). She paused, and added "I wish I had a sister, actually. Closer age, though – the worst thing is when Mom seems to think she can act like my sister. She is, like, _way_ too old to act like she's still a teenager."

"So...who in your family are you close to?" I asked, wondering if she had a sibling.

"Daddy." Taylor answered, not even having to think about it. "We have loads in common. Mom and I are like complete opposites, but Daddy and I both love and hate just about all the same things. And we're both used to winning everything."

I couldn't believe it. This wasn't exactly a new side to Taylor I was seeing, but I would have expected her to treat me like a little kid. She was so superior and bratty towards Kelly, but she treated me like we were the same age, like she could actually talk to me.

Okay, to be fair, she admitted that although a lot of contestants were her age (Stepbrothers, Vegans, even Goths), none of them interested her. The Stepbrothers were too immature (fair enough), the Vegans were "boring" (I didn't argue, but I disagreed), and the Goths wouldn't have talked to her anyway). According to Taylor, she would rather talk to me than the other teenagers because I was female, young, had a family member as my partner, and therefore would probably understand her.

I still didn't like Taylor, but I couldn't just tell her to shut up and leave me alone. Kat had already started a conversation with Kelly, and I wasn't going to talk to the boys at the back.

I got away from Taylor when we got to the airport. We were on our way to, of all the places in the world, Hawaii! Now, I wasn't exactly into beaches, but in Canada, it wasn't beach weather that much. Hawaii was supposed to always have beach weather. And gotta be fair – I liked the sun. Canada was always so cloudy and cold.

We were all on the same flight, so we actually got in ahead of all the other teams. The Adversity Twins were first off the plane, but they got preoccupied with the insistence of a local who was giving orchid leis to everyone (Jay was allergic). So we got to the Don Box (complete with Hawaiian shirt) first.

While Kat grabbed our one, the Reality TV Pros were ready to go next, but got shoved away by Emma. "This one's ours! You might as well give up now."

While Kat was reading, Owen spoke. "Uh-oh, prepared to get Noah-ed!" He waited for his partner to move. "Uh...any second now, he's just thinking and then bam...Noah?"

Noah was completely deaf to Owen's words. He was staring at Emma again.

"Reeni? Corrine!" I was brought back to the challenge at hand by Kat. "It's a Botch or Watch, and it's your turn."

It turned out that I had to dive into the water and go looking for a ring. Once I did that, I had to meet Kat on the shore to do the next challenge.

I didn't show it, but I was psyched to get a swimming challenge. Beaches weren't always my thing, but swimming? I was on the swim team at elementary school, and I was planning to continue that as my main sport.

So I dived straight into the ocean and began searching, and wouldn't you know it, I got lucky. As I came up with a gold ring with a white jewel embedded in it, I glanced around to see if anyone else had found one.

"Awesome!" Kat called from the dock. "Meet you on the shore!"

As I swam towards shore, I glanced back as I heard another splash. It turned out Jacques had just found one. In fact, I would have still known who it was without looking by Josee's loud call of "See you on the beach!"

I'd gotten enough of a headstart to reach the shore before Jacques. Kat and Josee were already both waiting, and the latter gave me what I would have considered a glare if she'd stopped smiling for a second.

The next challenge was an All-In. Some Hawaiian wedding ritual. One of us would wear a grass skirt (bride), the other a wreath of some kind of leaves (groom). Then the "groom" would carry their "bride" by walking barefoot across hot coals. And if anyone caught on fire, it would be back to the start to try again. Then it was a race to the Chill Zone

Kat insisted on being the groom. "I don't want you to have to carry me. It's too much of a strain."

I looked at her critically. "I think I could probably do it. But..." I grinned. "I guess I shouldn't argue. I mean, it's not like I _want_ to walk across hot coals."

Jacques and Josee were ready before us, but the Surfer Dudes were right behind us. Actually, we both had to go back, but Kat was ready to try again before them. We could still hear the Surfer Dudes talking further up, while the Best Friends, Sisters and Reality TV Pros were getting ready. I saw Carrie and Kitty whispering, and Noah...still staring at Emma.

Kat pointed at the guys ahead. "They're talking about cold memories. That's a good strategy. We should do that."

I paused. "I don't think I have any cold memories, but I can talk about cold things. That'll help, right?"

Kat grinned, and then picked me up bridal style and began walking on the coals for the second time.

"Snow...ice...Iceland...ice cream...slushy...January...and remember how it was really cold during nighttime in the Moroccan desert?"

We made it across. The Surfer Dudes were long gone, but Devin was halfway across with Carrie. The Ice Dancers were running back, Jacques having caught on fire again (even though Josee was carrying him at this point – now that's a hard mistake to make).

We came in second, with the Best Friends in third, and Ice Dancers in fourth. While I was waiting to make a confessional that evening, I heard Josee complaining about not even getting bronze. True, it was the first time they'd gotten any lower than third place, and they didn't seem too happy with third, either.

I made my confessional about the challenge, too. I was with Kat, so I kept it inpersonal. "We've been placing pretty high for most of the race. That gives me a good feeling. Maybe next time we get a swimming challenge, we'll place first!"

"If we have to do any more swimming as part of an All-In or Random Botch," Kat laughed, "I'll let her do most of it. But that means I can do all the driving and stuff."

As Kat left the backdrop, I pulled a "save me" face at the camera, remembering how crazily she'd driven the moped.

Junior and Dwayne arrived in seventh place, but I noticed Junior was wearing the leaves.

"So you were the groom?" I asked him. "Kat wouldn't have let me be the groom."

"You don't know what middle school is like." Junior replied. "If I'd worn the skirt, I would've been tortured when school starts."

"Yeah, but you had to carry your dad over the coals, right?" I said. "That sounds like a nightmare."

Junior shrugged. "I'm strong." He flexed one arm, and I giggled. His arms still looked like matchsticks. "Seriously!" he insisted. "Want me to prove it? I bet I can pick you up easy."

I raised an eyebrow. "You're only a little bit taller than me, and around the same size. I could hold you up for longer."

"What about we time it?" Junior challenged. "My watch has a timer."

"You're on!"

Okay, to be fair, I lost that one. Junior really was a lot stronger than he looked. I let him go after about twenty-seven seconds. He didn't even seem to have any trouble until forty-nine seconds in, and he only put me down after a minute had passed.

"I could go for longer," he said, "But carrying Dad wasn't as easy, so I didn't really want to hang onto any more weight for any longer."

I punched him lightly. "Seriously? You wanna rephrase that? I don't exactly weigh you down much!" I wasn't skinny or anything, but not overweight. I was what my family called "cuddly" but within the right weight range for my height.

Junior laughed. "To be honest? It wouldn't hurt to skip dessert, but you look good enough that you don't really have to lose any weight."

I couldn't help it. I blushed. I knew he'd just been teasing me, but still. Yeah, I knew it now. No way could I deny it. It wasn't just "more than friendship" that I felt. I had a genuine, full-fledged crush on Junior.

I didn't know what to do about it. I wasn't going to ask Kat. No way. When the Vegans arrived (eighth place), I deliberated on whether I could ask Laurie about it. I didn't think she'd tease me.

Oh, and by the way, as for the losers, Ryan and Stephanie arrived last. And Kelly and Taylor were second to last, and Kelly blew up at Taylor. Finally! I actually didn't hear what she was saying, but judging by Taylor's face, it was painful.

It was a non-elimination challenge. However, that was a problem for the Daters. Just before Don told them that, Ryan dumped Stephanie. Yeah. You heard me.

"I noticed their relationship was kind of strained," Kat told me later on, "But that escalated very quickly."

"What happened?" I asked. "How did you know?"

"Gymnastics – didn't you hear Stephanie yelling at him?" Kat reminded me.

A memory surfaced. " _You know who wins gold medals for this? Twelve-year-old girls!"_

It looked as if Stephanie was just too aggressive, and Ryan wasn't going to take it in silence. Well, that made sense.

 **Yeah. No alliance action yet. But there will be, I promise. In the next chapter.**


	10. Chapter 10

**Okay, let's keep moving. And by the way – something I have in common with Corrine. I used to think Dubai was in India for some reason. I think the name threw me off, reminding me of Mumbai and Delhi at the same time. Needless to say, never been there. But I'd like to go someday. Thanks for reviewing to EmEm811, Silver Writer 0927, Gage the Hedgehog, AA, Bloodylilcorpse and RainbowMonkeys.**

 **In answer to your question, RainbowMonkeys, Corrine has long strawberry-blonde hair and green eyes. She has no freckles and as I mentioned, she's of average weight with still some baby fat. She's a few inches shorter than Junior, and I'm sure I mentioned her outfit already.**

Taxis suck. I mean, let's think about it. Kat and I were in second place. Second. Place. We fell to joint seventh because we got a taxi with the most cautious driver ever. The next location was Dubai (I thought it was somewhere in India until Kat explained where it was), and we had to take the second flight, something we hadn't had to do since the flight to Morocco. The only good thing about it was that I'd definitely have someone to talk to on the flight. Junior, for one thing. The twins, too. And Laurie and Miles were on the same flight, too, so at least we'd actually have a chance to work with our alliance.

But meanwhile, we were waiting in the airport for an extra hour. While Kat got talking to the Vegans again, she said to me "Don't worry, we're not talking about alliance stuff at the moment. You don't have to stick with me right now. Why don't you go and talk to one of your friends?"

I felt like snapping at her, treating me like a little kid. Besides, it wasn't like Laurie and Miles were her age – in fact, I was closer in age to them than she was! I was five years younger, she was six years older. I guess she didn't see a difference because they were closer to adulthood. And me? I still looked like a kid.

But I did go and talk to the twins, after a while. They were in a better mood than usual, having to battle a ton of allergies in the last challenge and surviving it all. Plus they'd exceeded everyone's expectations.

"I didn't even hope to last through five eliminations!" Mickey said, his eyes shining. "I still can't believe it."

"At this point, I'm even thinking it's _not_ crazy to think we could possibly win." added Jay.

I grinned back at them and teased "Actually, that _is_ crazy. Second place, maybe. Me and Kat are gonna win!"

After my first sentence, the twins had looked shocked and disheartened. But when they realized what I was getting at, both of them laughed with me.

Our seats on the flight were actually opposite the twins. We didn't even have to take off before Jay pressed the flight attendant button because Mickey was getting a nosebleed.

"How much longer is this flight?" the ill twin groaned.

"We're still on the ground, you babies." Taylor said from the seat behind him. And you would think someone would tell her to be nice, but no. You know what Kelly actually said to her?  
"I like how you handled that, honey."

"Oh, do I get a fake trophy for it?" Taylor replied snarkily.

I turned to Kat. "Why does she let Taylor speak to her like that?"

Kat gave a sigh. "Poor Kelly. I know what Taylor means by that. You remember how Kelly lost her temper in Hawaii? I found out later that she'd told Taylor that all of the awards she has were fake – her dad paid for them all, and he paid off her coaches to lie and say she was the best at everything. They even paid off judges of beauty pageants so she'd win them! Taylor knows Kelly's sorry for what she said and is using it against her."

I nodded. "Yeah, I got that part."

After we took off, I heard Taylor saying "Mom, I need some space. I'm giving you a time out."

Yeah, exactly. When Kelly tried to protest, Taylor was about to make herself pass out by holding her breath, and her mother left her on her own and took a seat next to Dwayne and Junior.

The flight was almost a day long, so there was a lot of time to move back and forth. Kat and I didn't discuss any alliance stuff with the Vegans again, but eventually, Kat got into a conversation with Miles in their allotted aisle, and Laurie, just like on the first flight, swapped seats with Kat and instead, talked to me.

The two of them were back on full form with the competition. They'd been on shaky ground for the first few episodes after the feast dilemma – according to Laurie, Miles had thought for some reason that she had enjoyed the Icelandic feast, but even if she had, she'd felt so guilty for it that she'd never try meat again – but they had recovered and were playing with new determination. Well, they did seem to be placing higher now – they started off being almost last and now they were mostly in the middle. And now that they didn't need support any more, we were back to an equal friendship.

And there was that advice I needed. "Laurie," I said hesitantly, "There's something I need advice on. It's kind of...crush advice."

"Oh?" Laurie motioned for me to go on.

"Well, I don't really know." I confessed. "But I've been talking to Junior a lot...you know, since he's the closest person in age to me. And I think we're friends, but I kind of...I kind of want to be more than friends with him. But I don't know what that means. It's just...he's really cool, and I want to keep hanging out with him. I know I probably should tell him, but I don't want to make our friendship weird."

Laurie hesitated before answering. Her face was thoughtful. "I've never actually been in a serious relationship before." she admitted. "I didn't really notice boys until I was, like, fifteen, so I'm not really the right person to ask. You could ask your sister-"

"No way." I said firmly. "She'd tease me. Please, Laurie, don't tell anyone I told you."

Laurie nodded, and I believed her. "Okay, Corrine. I won't tell anyone. I guess...the best advice I can give you is to let him know at some point. Don't feel you have to tell him now, but he deserves to know. Maybe when you guys are better friends." She suddenly grinned mischeviously. "But don't worry. I think he probably likes you back."

I raised an eyebrow. "How can you tell? I thought he had a crush on Carrie."

Laurie shrugged. "I don't know about that, but I just got the impression he likes you. A couple of times, I noticed him looking at you without you seeing. And then he'd just sort of smile a little bit." She paused, and then added "Actually, now I think about it, haven't you been doing that?"

I blushed. "Maybe..." I admitted. "A few times."

It was good to get on the ground and find our tip. It was another Either-Or. "We have to return a tennis serve or clean a column of windows." Kat read. "Serve?"

I shook my head. "Before we decide, shouldn't we see what we're up against?"

What we were up against was the toughest ball launcher ever. And it was so tough that we chose to do the window washing. So the Sisters were clinging to a platform, hanging off it, but everyone else who was on windows looked as if they were doing okay.

Not the most interesting of challenges, but the Vegans chose to do the same and we had about the same speed and usually ended up washing windows on the same floor, so we talked as we washed.

We were still nowhere near first, though. The Sisters and Reality TV Pros teamed up and finished first, and the Ice Dancers were done when we still had five windows to go.

I don't know how the tennis teams were working, but when we arrived at the golden mall the Chill Zone was, only three tennis teams had arrived, Mickey and Jay being the first of them. They both looked thrilled.

We let Laurie and Miles take eighth place, and we took ninth. As for the winners – well, the Sisters had won, with the Reality TV Pros in second, the twins in third, and the Ice Dancers in fourth again. As a matter of fact, Josee was running around, throwing anything she could find.

"Okay, she's starting to scare me even more." I whispered to Kat.

"She's just angry." Kat said in an infuriatingly soothing tone. "She'll be fine."

"I'm not worked up about it." I said, trying really hard to hang on to my temper. "But she's too old to throw things around when she gets angry."

"True." Kat agreed. "Sorry – I was trying to calm myself down more than you. I'm scared of her too, you know."

I couldn't help smiling a little, as we connected for a moment.

We weren't the only team who forged a connection. It looked like Emma and Kitty had their own alliance with Owen and Noah from then on. And now, not only did Noah seem to really like Emma, but Emma got a bit dreamy and shy around him.

As for the losers...well, the Best Friends nearly lost, but it was Kelly and Taylor who got kicked out. They seemed on better terms than before, but they'd gone shopping before they checked in and only arrived after everyone else had come back.

And you know, they didn't seem that bothered. Taylor even smiled and shrugged "It was fun while it lasted."

And the fun had barely started.

 **This episode is nice to watch, but as an OC in the world, it's not so fun. The challenge is just so simple. Still, a bit more bonding done.**

 **To everyone, PLEASE check out my fic "I Kissed A Girl". It hasn't really taken off yet and it'll be in the M category when the next chapter is uploaded, but I'd like some support for it. The first four chapters are also posted under the same name on AdultFanFiction.**


	11. Chapter 11

**China. Ugh. Not the best episode. But China itself is pretty cool, in spite of getting stared at when I went to Shanghai. I mean, is it really so unusual to have Western vacationers? I didn't get stared at in Korea, and all people did in Japan was admire my hair because I was blonde back then. But nevertheless, a pretty interesting place with good food, interesting history and cool shopping.**

 **Thanks for reviewing, Silver Writer 0927, Gage the Hedgehog, RainbowMonkeys, EmEm811 and Bloodylilcorpse.**

Kat and I got a chance to do some shopping before we left Dubai. Not together, though. Kat went with...I don't remember who she went with, actually. Kitty, who was planning to take Carrie with her, asked me if I wanted to come. And although I was six years younger than both of them, they both treated me like I was their age. I mean, they didn't know what to say to me, but they didn't censor anything and actually listened to my contributions.

The non-censors was how I found out something Kitty had already discovered – Carrie secretly harboured romantic feelings towards Devin, but hadn't said anything yet. Besides that, he didn't have a clue, and he even had a girlfriend (but they swore me to secrecy on that). On the other side of the coin, Kitty excitedly talked about how she and Owen were planning to set up their partners and get them together.

"Emma's still hurt from her last breakup." she told us. "It was a couple of years ago. And she's been pretty cold since. I really wanted to find some way to cheer her up, and she and Noah act _so_ adorable when they're together. Now we just need to make them admit it..."

But our next location was more important at that moment. Next up, we were on our way to Beijing, China – specifically, the Birds' Nest stadium.

Being in ninth place had the trade-off of having a faster taxi. We actually got to the airport quickly enough to grab the first flight.

Kat read it. "Another All-In. We have to tandem parachute through the doughnut hole of the stadium."

This was one of the easiest challenges – for us, at least. Kat and I were light, but not that light. But Kat, who'd done a university course in physics, was watching where the other paras went when each pair jumped.

"So, I guess they have our backs?" Noah said shakily to Emma. They were fastened to each other – Noah and Emma in front of their partners. He shuddered after saying that.

"Yep, that was horrible." Emma said flatly, before whispering something to Kitty.

Josee, who had a good luck charm she'd apparently brought from Hawaii, kissed it. "I need all the good luck this Hawaiian lava rock can bring me!" she declared.

The Sisters and Reality TV Pros were blown off-course when they jumped, and Kat was surveying it, trying to work out why. She was harnessed up behind me.

"Keep yourself pointing the way you want to go as you jump!" Kat instructed. "Feet together, down...and go!"

We jumped, and although I felt like we were wavering, we achieved it first jump. Actually, everyone after the first two did, except for the Ice Dancers, who were blown right into a billboard.

We were fifth to the Don Box, but we all heard the words as Geoff took the first one. "It's another All-In."

I took the tip this time, and looked at it. Then I looked up at Kat. "How do you feel about deep-frying scorpions and insects?"

Kat managed a smile, although she looked a bit scared. "And let me guess...you have to eat it?"

I shrugged, trying not to make it seem like a big deal. "You ate the stew in Morocco. It's my turn."

If anything slowed us down, it was that part of the challenge. Everyone, even the teams that had been on the second flight, seemed to get there early. Kat was rather slow at assembling, and I bit off each piece on the skewer one by one, cautiously. I felt okay about doing it in theory, but eating it for real was pretty scary.

Still, we didn't take nearly as long as Carrie and Devin (Carrie kept throwing up at the very thought of worms – eating them or cooking them) or Laurie and Miles. They were close to giving up again, but Laurie screwed up her face and said "We have to step up our game. Think about it, Miles. If we win, we can save more animals than we take. I'm willing to do this just one more time. But I _won't_ enjoy it."

Miles looked shocked for a moment, and then the look on her face became determination and she nodded. "All right. Just one more time."

We ended up in twelth place, second-to-last, only just beating the Best Friends to the Chill Zone (Laurie and Miles managed to pass us earlier). However, it was a non-elimination round, so lucky for Carrie and Devin.

The Daters came in first, although by this time, they were calling themselves the "Haters". And the Ice Dancers came in fourth again. Josee was pretty furious by this time.

I talked to Junior, as usual. "So how's your dad going?" I asked.

"Not great." Junior admitted. "But it should've worn off by the time we start again tomorrow, the doctor says."

Right now, Dwayne wasn't putting himself in harm's way, but he was still acting slightly silly. But he was starting to recover, so that was a good sign.

"Any idea where we're going next?" I asked.

Junior shrugged. "Nope, but I'm hoping somewhere in this continent. You know, so the flight isn't ages?"

I frowned. "Isn't Asia the biggest continent in the world? It would probably take ages to get to India from here."

"I was thinking east Asia. Like Japan. Korea. Those places."

"I'd like to go to Japan." I said wistfully. I was thinking about Anime, and all the pretty kimonos and motifs. And just so I don't sound like a totally stereotypical girly girl, I was also thinking about the food. Just the thought of charshu men – that's what they called ramen with BBQ pork – made my mouth water.

As if he'd read my mind, Junior teased "You wanna try on a cute floral kimono? Like you're Hello Kitty or something like that?"

"Shut up!" I laughed, shoving him. "I'd like to see _you_ dare to wear traditional Japanese clothes."

Junior laughed too. "I think I'll stick with watching Anime with a bowl of karaage chicken and vegetable tempura."

I made a face. "Too much batter. I'll have the charshu ramen and...tofu on the side." (I'd never eaten tofu, actually, but hey, I was open).

Junior's eyes went wide, and he grinned. "Forget Japanese clothes. If we get to go there, we should totally have an eat-off. Just you versus me."

I grinned. "You're on! Don't underestimate how much I love Japanese food. You're _so_ gonna lose."

"No way! No offense to girls, but I haven't met any who can win something like that against me."  
It was also nice to talk to the twins. Although, I should note, Laurie was right about little glances between Junior and I when we thought the other wasn't looking. I once _thought_ I saw Junior glancing at me while I was talking to them, but if he was, he looked away so fast I couldn't tell if I was right. And I did catch myself watching him a little too much. So maybe it was true.

The twins were really pumped up, ready for anything. They were in a good mood, after getting through so many challenges and surviving with no major injuries.

"And you know something, Corrine?" Jay said. "I think the last few challenges were that much easier, because we knew that we had a friend in this race, and we wanted to stay in so we could keep getting to know her. I'm glad we met you."

Mickey nodded, adding "You were the first girl to talk to us...you know, that wasn't just concerned about our health, that actually wanted to get to know us." He paused, and then hissed "Tell her!" to Jay.

"No way!" I could hear Jay's whisper. "That's not gonna happen."

"Um, I can hear you two, you know." I said, folding my arms. "Is there something you wanted to say to me?"

Jay opened his mouth, but Mickey got in first. "Jay wanted to tell you he thinks you're pretty and he has a crush on you."

Jay went scarlet, but Mickey looked at him like _Tell the truth_ and he sighed and said "Great, now you think I'm even weirder than most people think. But I don't expect anything to come of it, which is why I wasn't going to tell you, so-"

"Stop." I said calmly. Both twins gave me their attention. "I'm flattered," I began, carefully, "But you're right in a way. Sixteen is still too old for me. I'm only twelve. But it doesn't mean I don't want to stay friends with you guys. And because of that," I lifted up on my tiptoes and kissed Jay on the cheek. It was dry, friendly, and not at all romantic. But it was enough. I was still friends with both twins. I hoped we'd keep in touch after the race.

But before any of that could happen, there were still sixteen more episodes. So many challenges!

 **Ugh! It feels like Corrine knows that the twins won't last much longer. But I had to get this plot point out of the way. But I always planned for one of the twins to have a crush on her, and Jay made the most sense. After all, while the twins are four years older than Corrine, they don't seem that much older.**


	12. Chapter 12

**Finland! Yeah, why haven't I ever been to Northern Europe again? Thanks for reviewing, Gage the Hedgehog, Silver Writer 0927, RainbowMonkeys and Bloodylilcorpse.**

It was worrying, starting out in second-last place. Kat and I had a serious talk about stepping up our game. But luckily, we were all on the same flight, so we weren't at a disadvantage this time.

Noah and Owen were first to the Don Box, but we were second. And as I pushed the button, I heard Noah say to Owen "Mind if we wait for...I don't know...Emma and Kitty?"

"Do I mind?" Owen repeated. "Not in the least!"

I had a look at the tip. "An All-In – wait. We have to sit in a sauna for ten minutes? In our clothes? With another team?" I shivered in the cold Finnish air at the idea of it.

"And then we have to cross a semi-frozen river to find the next Don Box." Kat added, just as Crimson and Ennui, followed by Laurie and Miles, ran up. We grabbed our alliance partners the minute they got the tip and went into the nearest sauna.

Both of our alliance members meditated in the heat. "We're going to put ourselves in the cold in our minds." Laurie explained. I got her point and tried to do the same. It was still a horrible experience, but bearable. Our ten minutes were finally up and we all ran for the semi-frozen river.

We weren't the first in, to be honest. The twins, who had gotten in early-ish, seemed like the least sluggish team left and were ahead of most of the other teams. Also, it looked like six or seven teams had gotten in seconds after us, because they caught up with us quickly.

Just as we were facing the river, Crimson and Ennui caught up.

"There's the semi-frozen river." Ennui said in his monotone. But before either of them moved, they were knocked in by...

Kitty. The girl was scrubbing at herself, muttering "So unclean..." to herself, just as her partner and the Reality TV Pros arrived.

"It looks like they're OK in the river." I mused. "I'm crossing." And before anyone else reacted, I dived into the water, and swam across. I was shivering as I got out, but I didn't feel completely frozen.

"Come on!" I called across. "I don't think I'm allowed to hit the Don Box until the whole team is across!"

Kat didn't cross until Laurie and Miles had both joined me at the other side, and gotten their tip. In fact, they were just leaving as I took our tip.

"We need to head downtown." I told Kat. "Something about rock..."

As we were just about ready to leave, we heard two screams. They came from two people that, at first, we didn't recognize. They looked nice, kind of cute and preppy. But then we noticed their clothes. And the way they spoke when they checked themselves in their compact mirrors.

"My face!" the boy exclaimed.

"Don't look at me!" the girl cried.

"Are those...are those two really the Goths?" I whispered to Kat.

"Looks like it." Kat whispered back. "I knew they had a ton of makeup, but I didn't realize they were wearing wigs. I just thought they dyed their hair black and white."

We found the Don Box, and this time, Kat checked out the tip. "A Botch or Watch." she told me. "Your turn."

I had a look. "Okay, so I have to go onstage and impress a bunch of Finnish rock fans via...air guitar?" I frowned. Okay, so I didn't mind being on TV. But air guitar? What was I supposed to do?

Luckily, teams backstage were practicing, so I checked out what they were doing and copied.

"How do I look?" Kitty asked Emma.

"Like a lunatic, but I think that's what we're going for, so keep it up."

Meanwhile, Jay was saying to Mickey "Strum it like you own it!"

"I feel ridiculous." Mickey groaned.

"Maybe you need to rock harder."

I tried to play, thinking about any rock star I'd seen on TV. What expressions did they have? When did their crowds cheer the loudest? "Smile or scowl?" I asked Kat.  
She looked out at the audience, who was right now watching Noah. "They all look like the Goths when they had their makeup." she whispered. "Keep it deadpan – don't smile, but don't scowl. Just act like you know what you're doing."

Emma rolled her eyes at Noah's performance, and we saw him visibly losing out. The audience booed him off. By the time he got back, everyone was there. Even Don had turned up for a second. The Goths came up wearing paper bags over their heads. At first, Don didn't believe they were who they said they were because they didn't creep him out. After Crimson pointed out the camera crew, he let the issue go. But still.

Mickey didn't do much better than Noah. He just panicked about something after Noah warned him about the "tree" of speakers.

Kitty didn't do much for the audience, either. Then Laurie took her turn, and got booed off, probably because she was so nervous. It took slightly longer for me to get booed off, but it was still a loss. After me came MacArthur, Junior, and Ryan, who did nothing for the audience.

Jacques started off doing okay, but then he ran into some wires and got eletrocuted. "Why are there even wires up here?" he complained. "This is air guitar!"

When Ennui took his turn, his paper bag fell off and someone from the audience yelled out "Get off the stage, preppy!"

Meanwhile, Crimson had taken her bag off and the Best Friends were talking to her.  
" _Crimson?_ Wow!" Devin exclaimed. "Your skin is so...flesh-coloured!"

"I _love_ your hair!" added Carrie.

Crimson just looked shy and unsure of herself. "You're throwing a lot of positive emotions my way, and I don't know what to do with that."

The team disappeared halfway through the challenge, just as people started getting better.

Believe it or not, we finished second. I was just madly strumming, my long hair whipping around my face, getting tangled, and I started hearing cheers, until the meter declared me done. We didn't beat MacArthur and Sanders, but we only just beat the Sisters.

Guess which team came in fourth, for the fourth time in a row. I guess that's what made me suspect what was confirmed later on that night – the Ice Dancers placing fourth all the time had something to do with something happening in Hawaii – like, oh, I don't know, Josee finding a lava rock and making it her new lucky charm.

But really. The third-to-last team was the Goths, having apparently found makeup and were now looking even scarier than before. They saw the lava rock and informed the team that "those things cast a shroud of darkness over all who plunder them". Yeah, I didn't get that.

But I understood when Jacques glared at his partner, putting it more simply. "Your good luck charm has been cursing us all this time? Well done, Josee!"

"Thanks." muttered his partner. "How do we break the curse?"

"Just toss it anywhere in Hawaii." Ennui told her.

The only people left downtown were the twins, and the Reality TV Pros. "Kat," I said, "I want to go back for a minute. I saw Mickey freak out, and I'm his friend. I wanna help him."

Kat looked up at the sky. "It's getting dark. You can go, but don't walk back here without the next team that gets here, okay? It's not that I don't trust you, but we don't know this place well, and it might get dangerous after dark."

I understood. It was surprising of her to think ahead like that – that I might think she was babying me. It was nice, but to be honest, I thought she was still babying me too much.

But by the time I got there, it was too late. Emma was talking to Mickey. I didn't hear everything she said, but I got the last part. "...breathing it in too! All those germy fingers...anyway, good luck!" And then she walked away from him.

There was no way I could've gotten through then. Mickey was too stressed out to take encouragement, and he broke out in hives onstage. As for Noah...he finally rocked the air guitar.

While he was finishing, I had to say my goodbyes to the twins, knowing they would be eliminated (well, Don had just appeared and said it was an elimination round). "I'm going to miss you guys so much." I told them. "You two are some of my best friends on this show. Promise you'll keep in touch?"

By this time, Don was about to ask the twins to do a reflection before they left. "Corrine, back to the Chill Zone, please." he said sternly. "You'll all be back together during the finale."

Well, at least I could get their contact details during the finale, when we weren't on a time limit.

I nodded shyly. "Sorry." I murmured, and then walked back with Noah and Owen, who had by this time realized there was no point in running.

I didn't talk to them, not really. I didn't know what to say to them.

Kat knew what had happened the minute I got back. She put her arm around me. "I know you were good friends with them." she said sincerely. "I'm sorry."

I managed to smile. "Hey, I'll get to see them at the finale, Don said. At least they're not my only friends."

Kat grinned back. "On that note, I just wanted to say – you and Junior are simply adorable! Have you told him about your little crush yet?"

I blinked at her, and she laughed. "I could tell just by looking at you two. You sort of light up whenever you talk to him. Also, I think the times I've seen him happiest is when he's talking to you."

"Oh, please." I brushed that off. "There aren't any other kids our age in this thing. He probably gets fed up with just his dad for company. They haven't made that many friends since they're not really around the same age as everyone else. I think you're the oldest under-thirty here."

"But you like him!" Kat teased. "Come on, it's so sweet. Are you going to tell him?"

I groaned. "See, this was the reason I didn't tell you. Sure, I'll tell him. In my own time."

 **I have major plans for the next episode, but I'm kind of sad to see the twins go. I never planned to make them go further than they did in the original, but I didn't realize how much I was going to like them when writing this.**


	13. Chapter 13

**YES! I've just been waiting forever to write this episode! It's the one where Junior really started having proper inter-team interactions, which will be fun to change and play around with. Thanks for reviewing, Silver Writer 0927, Gage the Hedgehog, RainbowMonkeys (wait for my home country) and Bloodylilcorpse.**

The next morning, we were up early and ready for the next location. What was it?

"Zimbabwe!" Kat announced as I slammed my hand down on the Don Box and she took the tip. "Well," she grinned, "At least it's warmer than here." So we took a taxi to Helsinki Airport and bought our tickets.

"I'll hang on to both of them." Kat said without missing a beat. "I mean, I've got our passports, too."

While we were waiting for the plane, I heard two different conversations – one of which I heavily identified with. On one side, I heard Junior saying to Dwayne "I can hold my own ticket-"

"I know you can," Dwayne tried to reason, "I'm just not sure you should. When you're a dad, you can hold as much stuff as you want. For now, let's go find you a bandage...and a lollipop."

"It's a paper cut!" Junior protested. "I'm fine." But I shuddered. Paper cuts really stung. So what happened? He got a paper cut from his ticket?

"So fine a lollipop wouldn't help?" Dwayne said.

"Dad, I'm not a baby. Candy's not going to work."

"A balloon?"

"Dad!"

I looked over at Kat, wondering if she'd heard that. It wasn't just the holding-on-to-my-ticket thing. She wasn't taking me seriously enough, either. I mean, teasing me about having a crush on Junior, telling me not to say impolite things or giving me support only someone half my age would need...maybe if she saw Dwayne treating his son like a little kid, she'd notice some parallels.

But no, she was too focused on the second conversation – this one was between the man at the ticket counter and the Ice Dancers.

"Why is this so hard for you to understand?" Josee demanded.  
"We want the next flight to Hawaii, and we only wanna be there for like ten minutes!" Jacques added. "And the we need to fly from Hawaii to Zimbabwe!"

"But it making no sense!" the Finnish man stuttered in broken English.

"Okay, fine, we making no sense." snapped Josee. "Now stuff the opinion and give us our tickets!"

Kat turned back to me, smiling. "Well, if they're flying to Hawaii first, at least we don't need to worry about coming in last, do we?"

I dredged up a smile and said "Yeah. In fact, I know it's mean, but I sort of hope it's an elimination round." I paused, and added "But I don't think it will be. Next location might, but the twins just got eliminated. Most of the elimination episodes have a non-elimination between them."

Kat shook her head. "We had three eliminations in a row at the start. Then after Iceland, we had two. I'll admit, after Romania there was always one location in-between eliminations, but this could be the end of the Ice Dancers' run."

I quickly made an on-set confessional just before we boarded. "Kat's right, but for some reason, she's annoying me. Maybe it's just being stuck with the same person day in, day out for the last...what? Three weeks? Definitely at least two with all the flights. I'm not sure what day it is, because of all the flights. It was summer when I left, now it could be Christmas for all I know!" I sighed. "I think Kat still thinks of me as her little sister, and 'little' implies 'young'. I may be young, but not as young as she seems to think I am!"

It didn't really matter, though – not at that moment, anyway. What mattered was the challenge, and Kat's driving ability. The minute we left the airport in Zimbabwe, we saw the twelve jeeps lined up, and the Don Box. We had to drive to Victoria Falls, near the Zambeesi river.

"Drive carefully!" I begged Kat. "You scared me with the moped last time."

Kat laughed off my warning, but she seemed to drive straighter while I directed her with the map, so that was a plus. Still, we weren't quite first. The Daters were just ahead of us, and I heard MacArthur calling to them from even further up. "Why aren't you two making out any more, huh? Got tired of the..." she started making kissing noises, and Stephanie started yelling at Ryan to pass them, her voice almost bursting my eardrums.

We arrived around the same time as Dwayne and Junior, actually. By that time, a few teams had gone, but we weren't in last place, either. Or even second-last, since the Ice Dancers were still in a different continent.

We checked out the Don Box. "Check the glove compartment." Kat instructed. "Selfie safari. We go down the falls while taking a selfie. Then we go through Zambeesi National Park, take a picture with a white rhino, then head for the Carpet of Completion." She smiled. "Nice and easy."

I nodded. "So easy that I can take the selfies, right?" I smiled.

Kat nodded agreeably. "I better be the one to be in the photo with the rhino, anyway."

I inwardly groaned, feeling like any hope of being seen as an adult was doomed to failure. Kat saw me as her little sister, a little girl. How could I change that?

But I was better off than Junior. I honestly think Dwayne was projecting his own fears of the waterfall onto him, going on about safety, and trying to think of a way to not have to do that part of the challenge. But thing was, they got it done before us, anyway.

It's all a blur, the way the waterfall selfie went down. I know I took it, and Kat and I screamed like crazy as I snapped our selfie. But next thing I knew, I was being carried along by the current of the river and once I had my bearings, I'd drifted far enough that I had no idea where I was. Luckily, one of the inflatable boats was just ahead, so I swam ahead and pulled myself up to find...

"Junior?" I looked up at my crush, who was leaning back, humming happily. But he was alone.

At my voice, he looked up and helped me into his boat. "Corrine! Hey. So...what happened to your sister?"

"I don't know." I shrugged. "One minute we were taking the selfie, and the next, I was halfway downstream with the camera. I guess we'll just have to meet at the Chill Zone. What happened to your dad?"

"Same." Junior shrugged too. "The family rule for getting separated is to go to your destination." He smiled. "Guess we're teammates for this challenge."

"Cool." I grinned back, feeling butterflies.

A few minutes later, we felt another boat bump against ours, and Junior turned, saying "I knew you were going to catch u...oh. Hi."

It was the Haters.

"Sup, guys." Ryan greeted us. "Where're your partners?"

"We got separated." Junior and I said at the same time.

"We were planning to finish the challenge ourselves." I added. "Then we'll probably get the chance to meet our partners at the Chill Zone. I know Kat'll meet me there."

Junior looked thoughtful for a moment, and then added to the team "Mind if we tag along?" That was a good idea. Alliance, even if it was just for this episode. The team wouldn't see a twelve-year-old and a thirteen-year-old as a threat. Just kids.

But Ryan's reply? "Oh, you don't want to get in this boat. Stephanie might hit you with an oar and shove you off a cliff!"

Stephanie finally spoke up. "Are you _still_ talking about that?" She glared at him venomously. "Get over it!"

"Wait, you guys weren't in the boat at the same time?" I said, frowning. "Then how did you get a selfie?"

Stephanie pulled out the camera and showed us the picture. She was smiling in it, and...yes, Ryan was below, not having quite hit the water.

"Wow, I can't believe you got it." I smiled.

"That's impressive." added Junior.

"HA!" Stephanie smirked at Ryan. "You hear that? Impressive!"

"They don't know any better!" Ryan shot back. "They're just children!"

"We're not that little!" I protested.

"And I've got a chest hair," Junior put in. "So..."

"So he's already more of a man than you, Ryan!"

We decided to ditch the team once we reached the National Park, since they were driving us nuts. All they did was argue and insult each other. I mean, they weren't unfriendly to us, but they were getting more and more annoying. We were trying to tell them thanks, but we should go find our partners, goodbye, and all we heard was...

"Well, I only boss you around because you have no leadership skills, guts or common sense!" Stephanie justified herself.

"Please! I've saved us from elimination way more often than you have!" Ryan argued.  
"Are you _insane?_ "

"I must be – I was dating you!"

"Why did you have to remind me? I'd already blocked that out!"

"Anyway," Junior said, "You're not listening, so..."

And as both of them started yelling, we walked off together, both muttering "Good luck...with everything."

We even made a confessional together. "How do those two compete at all, now they've broken up?" I expressed myself. "Come to think of that, how did they EVER get along when they were dating?"

Junior nodded. "I don't like to judge but those two probably shouldn't have kids."

Then we both walked off, looking for a rhino. As we walked, we chatted about our experiences so far in the race. I told him about how Kat was driving me nuts with her "I'm the responsible older teammate/sister" thing, and that was enough for him to admit that he was sick of his dad treating him like a little kid. But we also talked about other things that happened in the race that we hadn't mentioned before. Funny stories and things we'd heard from other teams. Junior told me all about how Kelly threw her drink on Dwayne on the way to Dubai because he suggested that either she'd raised Taylor wrong, or that she was just born to be impossible. I didn't have so many stories to tell him, but there was only one thing I consciously kept back – hearing that Jay had something for me. I wanted that to stay secret...at least, unless it aired on TV for the world to hear.

We didn't find the rhino until we met up with another team. Halfway through the trek through the park, we were both suddenly tackled by someone tall and slim.

It was Devin, but the good thing about this was that he and Carrie let us tag along.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Carrie asked us as we got up.

I waved it off. "Yeah, don't worry about it."

"I'm fine!" Junior said eagerly. Then he put on a deeper voice and said "I mean, I'm fine."

"Where're your partners?" Devin questioned, just like how Ryan had. And we gave him the same answer in unison.

"We got separated."

"You two are out here all alone?" Carrie said, the concern in her voice genuine. If it had been a different situation, I would have felt a bit insulted. But think about it – two kids wandering a park full of vicious rhinoes on their own...yeah, that's concerning.

Junior tried to look cool again. "Yeah. Just me and Corrine." And for a moment, he took my hand. I mean, we didn't hold hands for long, since he let go to point out rhino tracks...but...oh wow, that made the butterflies multiply, but I also felt a floaty feeling for that second. You know, in a good way, like I was floating a few inches above myself, so light-hearted my feet barely touched the savannah.

Now, Kat would probably have overprotected me if we ended up there together, but not the Best Friends. They let us tag along, and once they'd taken a picture with the rhino, Carrie took pictures with each of our cameras of us. Junior even KISSED the rhino.

As we ran, Junior began saying something to Devin I couldn't hear. They raced ahead, and Carrie and I were side by side as we ran. "So..." I began, "How are things going with...you know..." I motioned towards Devin, and Carrie blushed.

"Something's happening, I think." she said in a low voice. "I'm just going to have to wait for the right time to tell him how I feel." She suddenly smiled, and asked "What about you and Junior? I have to say, you two make a cute couple."

I gave a sigh, and said "I don't know. I like him, actually, but I don't think he's into me. I know for a fact that in this challenge, he was trying to impress _you._ He's probably asking Devin if it's okay if he asks you out right now."

"Oh!" Carrie blushed again, but this time she looked amused. "I wasn't expecting that. But I don't think that's what he was doing. Didn't you notice? He kept looking at you, as if he was trying to find out what you thought everytime he did or said something."

"So...you think I should say something?" I asked.

"Yes, and I don't think you'll be disappointed." Carrie said encouragingly. "It's obvious." She sighed. "I wish I could say the same for me and Devin. Kitty said back in Hawaii that I should tell him. Maybe I will soon."

The Best Friends placed fourth, but when Junior and I got to the Chill Zone, Don said "Junior, Corrine, I'm sorry, but both team members must be present before you can be counted."

Luckily, Kat turned up with Laurie and Miles. And she'd finished the second part of the challenge with their camera too. But since I had our camera, Don checked my photos out. As Kat saw me, Miles smiled at her and said "There you go. Your sister's fine. She's streetwise enough to find a way to keep herself safe."

Kat gave me a big hug when we placed tenth. "Reeni! I was SO worried when you disappeared!" she said. "So how did you get here?"

I tried to sound casual. "I got into the first boat I saw, and it happened to be Junior's. Then we met up with the Best Friends and we took a pic of them so they could both be in it, then they took pictures of us with each of our cameras. It was pretty easy, actually. Me and Junior together made an okay team."

Kat smiled. "You're a lot more grown-up than I thought." she admitted. "To get that done...just don't scare me like that again, all right?"

I pulled a jokey face. "Can't make any promises, but...y'know, I'll try."

Dwayne actually didn't make it until after that, and he very nearly lost. He just managed to reach Junior before the Ice Dancers (apparently having managed to fly here from Hawaii and complete the challenge in record hours) arrived.

And I think Junior achieved the same goal as me. Dwayne hadn't finished the challenge himself, because he'd been searching for Junior, but his son had finished it for him. We'd both proved to our partner that we were more adult than they'd realized. Whether the message would stick, however, was another story

There's one more thing of importance that happened. The Ice Dancers approached. "And stay down!" Josee yelled at the rhino further back.

"Jacques and Josee-" Don began.

"We know." Jacques cut him off.

Josee looked as if she was about to cry. "Twelfth. Last. Eliminated."

"We just want our fans and our country to know," Jacques said, "That we tried our very best. And we wish-"  
"Good news!" Don interrupted him. "It's a non-elimination round!"

The team cheered, and then, something really weird happened. They began laughing. And this isn't normal laughing – it's like they suddenly turned into cartoon villains. Even Don commented on how creepy it was.

Oh well. We'd just have to see what happened.

 **As we all know, this was the point where the Ice Dancers really became villains. I mean, their lack of action before this point is why I've only placed them 5th (Josee) and 8th (Jacques) on my TD Villains Rankings – and that's out of ten! I mean, I would've placed Josee in 4th if she'd played that way from the start. Anyhow, that heats things up. And just because Kat has acknowledged that Corrine's not a dumb kid now, it doesn't mean their storyline's over.**


	14. Chapter 14

**Australia! I remember driving through Melbourne and seeing signposts to Geelong...thanks for reviewing, Silver Writer 0927, Gage the Hedgehog, StarHeart Specials, RainbowMonkeys and Bloodylilcorpse.**

The Police Cadets had come in first in Zimbabwe, so they took the first tip. I heard Sanders speaking to the camera. "I hope our camera crew's in shape, cause from here on in, we're gonna double time it!"

Then, she took the tip. "We're going to Australia! Yes!"

Melbourne, Victoria was the location of the flight. Sort of southern, but not as much as South Australia. But I wished we were going to Queensland. I'd heard it was gorgeously warm over there, and it was in the Southern Hemisphere, so it was winter.

We took a bus to the airport. That is, everyone, even though we hit the Don Box in order of who got the Chill Zone first, meaning I wanted to get the seat nearest to the front, but it was taken.

The Ice Dancers were last on the bus, but...wow, their entrance! They had swapped their light purple ensemble for a black one, which actually looked pretty good. The only thing was, it also made them look kind of like they were from Team Rocket from the _Pokemon_ anime – I mean, the ones that were higher up and wore black outfits, not the white ones the usual team wore, although to be honest...the Ice Dancers were similar to them. I mean, even their names were similar!

As the bus started up, I heard Junior saying to Dwayne "Stick with me today. I don't want you getting lost again, okay?" Yeah, um...who was the parent in that team again?

This time, the flight took all of us, so we never actually needed to stress over who was off the bus first. Well, until Don put a message on our flight about a "boomerang". If we found a little red boomerang symbol attached to our next travel tip, it would give us the power to send another team back at the next Don Box to repeat the last part of the challenge.

"I want one!" I heard Josee say from in front of us.

"Let's hope she doesn't get what she wants." I whispered to Kat, who snickered and nodded.

She paused and added "Wait...how many boomerangs would there be? One or more?"

"There's twelve teams left." I said, trying to work out what a good estimation would be. "So there can't be more than six, really. And there must be some teams who won't get involved, so I'd guess...three, maybe?"

"I guess we'll find out." Kat murmured.

I was right about the Melbourne weather. Queensland probably felt like summer, but Melbourne was bitterly cold and windy. It was sunny, though.

We hit the Don Box early. Okay, so we didn't get a boomerang. But we got hope for a prize. For the first time, the first place team would get something for their trouble – a phone call home.

"We could call Mom and Dad!" Kat grinned. Well, that was one thing we could agree on. It would be an epic chance. I mean, Kat had her cellphone with her, but she was forbidden to call anyone from home, so all she'd been doing was taking pictures occasionally. Actually, she'd gotten the idea from Kitty, who was like the Queen of Selfies.

Our next stop was Geelong Maximum Security Prison. It had closed down years ago, but it was a tourist attraction, so I made a good guess at what it was like.  
The taxi ride was ridiculously long, even though we got one that drove at a good pace. First we had to drive into the centre of the town.

"Look, Reeni, that's the Museum of Media and Technology!" Kat pointed out. "And...wow...they call Burger King 'Hungry Jacks' over here. Weird!"

I looked out at the bright streets too, astounded by the sheer colour and life of the city. "Are those trains on the road?"

"They're trams." Kat corrected. "But look at all those department stores – David Jones, Zara...oh, I hope we'll get time to shop here!"

Geelong was a way out of the city, too, but we had to go through the tempting shops and busy streets to get there from the airport. The taxi drive took about an hour in total.

We actually made it to the prison first. "Welcome to Geelong." one of the guards greeted us, before cuffing us and then locking us up in a cell. Okay, we'd been warned on the tip. There were four methods of escape, though – tunnels, trapdoors, hidden equipment and loose bars.

As we searched, we heard other voices.  
"Can you please keep it down?" we heard Josee's voice say on one side. "We're trying to think!"

On the other side of us, we heard MacArthur calling back "Don't worry, trying anything for the first time is hard!"

I giggled as I was searching the bedding and around the toilet (yeah, we had one in our cell) for tools.

Kat had a brainwave. "What kind of plumbing system did they have? Think we could get out through the sewer?"

Actually, that surprisingly worked. We worked hard to pull the toilet up, and it revealed a tunnel, which was okay for the most part. But then, just as we were passing under another pipe, a flushing sound came through and suddenly, I was drenched in runny brown stuff that stank.

"EWWW!" I screeched. "Who's up there?"

Kat stopped, listening, and we heard the sounds of someone trying hard to...you know, go. It was male.

"That would be Owen." Kat whispered. "On Total Drama, his biggest traits were his appetite and his flatulence. Well, and his innocent friendliness, sense of fun and awareness of making gay comments, but you know what I'm saying." She shook her head. "Don't worry, you can clean up once we're out of here."

Our next stop was a river, where the Don Box told us to build a raft and sail it down to the Chill Zone.

"I'll start on it." Kat told me kindly. "You try to rinse off a little bit."

My clothes were mostly all right, having just gotten a few trickles down my jeans and shirt. However, my long, straight, strawberry-blonde hair was the worst. Once I'd rinsed it, it wasn't as bad as it had been, but it still looked like I'd used faeces as shampoo. Huh, never thought about the implications of that word. Still, washing my hair was much more pleasant than standing under a pipe where someone was flushing number two.

Once I'd spent ten minutes trying to get as much clean as possible, I helped Kat finish building the raft, and we arrived in third place.

Carrie and Devin had won the phone call home. Devin was dialing frantically, but Carrie was trying to say something. "Devin, can I please just tell you?"

But her best friend/crush wasn't listening as he dialed again. "Come on, pick up!"

And second place...the Stepbrothers. But they seemed pretty happy – probably because they seemed to have become best friends between Zimbabwe and here.

Devin reached the person he was calling before everyone had reached the Chill Zone. "Shelley?" he said. "Oh, thanks, Ashton." I got who he was talking to – Carrie had mentioned Shelley was the name of Devin's girlfriend, and Devin explained that Ashton was Shelley's tennis instructor.

I heard some more noise on the phone, and Devin spoke into it. "Shelley, hi! It's me! Devin! I miss you so much...what? No, we never broke up! You're dating _who?_ Ashton?! No, please, Shelley, don't! Wait!" But even from my place, metres away, I could hear the dial tone as his girlfriend...or I guess, ex-girlfriend...hung up. "I need to call her back!"

"Sorry, one phone call only." Don said cheerfully. "So, how's the girlfriend?"

Devin looked devastated. "She's dumped me! For her tennis instructor!" He burst into tears.

The Ice Dancers and Police Cadets were almost neck-and-neck. But the Cadets were just a tiny bit behind, so they lost. However, it was another non-elimination round, so they got to stay.

"So..." I mused out loud. "Who got the boomerang?"

It turned out to be the last place teams. They'd boomeranged each other. Well, I'd known MacArthur already hated the Ice Dancers, so this wouldn't exactly endear her to them. And as for the Ice Dancers...well, they'd been rivals with the Cadets for a while now, since they were such frequent winners.

Geelong was too far away from Melbourne's main streets for Kat to go shopping, especially since it was late afternoon by the time everyone was done and we had another challenge to do in the farmlands of Victoria the next day. But it was fun to hang out there.

And at least Kat had brought a solar shower, and it was sunny, even though it was cold. By the next day, I'd gotten my hair completely faeces-free, and I had to change my outfit. Luckily, I'd brought an extra pair of jeans (except these were the regular blue denim), but I swapped my lips top for a blood red tee with a black banner design reading "Small Means Sharp".

And I was going to prove it in the next challenge.

 **Will she? I'm sorry, I know the whole thing with Owen unwittingly pouring his...you know...on her was gross, but I don't usually do gross stuff like that, so...yeah, exception.**


	15. Chapter 15

**All right! Bunny bagging! Thanks for your review, Silver Writer 0927, King Goody Two-Shoes (I know), RainbowMonkeys (I promise you won't have to wait for longer than three), Gage the Hedgehog, Bloodylilcorpse, A. A Sliver Knife and Nicky Haugh (He's my fourth favourite TD guy, and there are a few more non-canon eliminations coming up).**

No one actually commented on my top. Not directly, anyway. But when I was talking to Junior about the challenge (and once he'd got done laughing at my bad hair day), he commented "You know, just cause you're smaller than me doesn't mean you're sharper."

"Well," I said, "Let's see which of our teams wins the next challenge."

"Wanna make it a real bet?" Junior grinned. "If we get to the carpet before you, you have to do whatever I say for the rest of the day after the last team arrives."

"And if I get there first, vice versa?" I said. We shook on it.

So maybe it was no wonder I was so fired up the next morning when Carrie took the tip, simultaneously trying to comfort Devin, who'd cried all night. She reminded him that there was more to life than Shelley. "You've got so many people who care about you!"

And..well...you won't believe this, but Devin made the jump from her being right, to thinking that Shelley hadn't dumped him, that he'd misunderstood her or something. "Just wait 'til I tell Shelley about this! We are gonna laugh..."

Poor Carrie! She'd been given the hope that without a girlfriend in the way, Devin might actually realize that she was the girl for him, but now he was focused on pretending the break-up wasn't real.

And Carrie didn't have time to dwell on it. "Move already!" Chet demanded. "Me and my awesome bro are up!"

It was an All-In, and very simple. We simply had to catch ten rabbits in a sack – the wild ones that kept getting into farms. But among them, there was one albino bunny. If we caught that, then that would be it – we could move on to the next part of the challenge.

The Vegans were, interestingly, pretty good at it. Miles crouched down with the rabbits and seemed to get them calm enough to come close to her. Then Laurie carefully picked them up and desposited them in the sack. They'd disappeared by the time Kat and I had only caught one.

As I ran after another one, I heard Ryan say "Whoa! What is Ennui doing?"

I looked up to see the taller Goth with rabbits clinging to him. "Um, Crimson, it's happening again." he said uncomfortably.

"What IS he doing?" I whispered to Kat.

My sister scrutinized the situation. "I don't know. It just seems like the rabbits love him for some reason. You know how animals just really like some people? Ennui's one of them, I guess."

Jacques was the opposite of Ennui. Earlier on, I'd saw a rabbit he'd caught attacking him. He'd called to Josee to help him out, but apparently, she was too busy glaring at the Police Cadets.

The Stepbrothers started chasing a kangaroo, for some reason mistaking it for the albino rabbit. Look, I'd never seen a kangaroo before, but even I knew what one looked like. And even if I hadn't, I'd know that it looked nothing like an albino rabbit, especially since it wasn't white with red eyes. Again, how could two seventeen-year-olds act less mature than anyone else in this race, when they weren't even the youngest? I was pretty sure I was more mature than them. So were the twins, when they were here. Heck, Junior was too!

We caught rabbits steadily and slowly, leaving at about the same time as the Haters (they'd actually only caught two, but it looked like they'd caught pregnant bunnies, since eight baby ones turned up in their bag). Our next part of the challenge was to take a glider to the Chill Zone in...New Zealand. I let Kat take the wheel, while we went over what was in New Zealand. I knew virtually nothing about it.

"I thought it was part of Australia." I admitted.

Kat smiled as she drove the glider forward. "Me too. But it's actually a separate country made up of islands, like Japan. Except they have two main ones – the North Island and the South Island. According to the tip, the Chill Zone is in the middle of the South Island. It might be colder than Australia, even, because it snows there."

"What else?" I asked. "Do they have a native people there, like Australia with the Aboriginals?"

Kat paused, and then said "Yeah, I think so. I remember seeing pictures of them in books. They look sort of like the Aborigine people, but a bit lighter, though not by much. The pictures showed them wearing cloaks with a lot of feathers and tattoos, but I guess that was nineteenth century. I don't remember what they're called." Suddenly, she exclaimed "Oh! Feathers! Yeah, New Zealand has a lot of native birds. I think one of them's extinct – but the cloak in the picture had some of its feathers. I think it was called the...moa? Something that ended in A, anyway."

That gave me a thought. "Oh yeah, I remember now! New Zealand has the kiwi bird, right? That flightless nocturnal bird with a long beak?"

Kat grinned. "Where did you hear that, Miss I-thought-New-Zealand-was-Australia?"

I shrugged. "One of the kids at school went on holiday to New Zealand, and he said the term for New Zealanders is 'Kiwis'. Then I looked the word up and it said it was a bird who was a symbol for the country."

It was only when we were about to land our glider when I remembered the bet I'd made with Junior. I prayed that he hadn't made it to the Chill Zone yet.

The first two teams I saw were the Vegans and Ice Dancers. The latter looked pissed, but the former team were smiling. They'd come in first.

But hey, the Ice Dancers had managed second place. That was better than fourth. I was starting to worry that they were going to be a major threat.

The Goths had arrived, and as we got out of the glider and began running, I saw Ennui was holding a rabbit with goth makeup. Wait, what? He hadn't seemed very happy about the rabbits hugging him! (I found out later that the rabbit was called Loki, and was part of their team. They named him that because he was a crop destroyer, and according to Ennui, was very low-key).

But as we reached the Chill Zone, I saw another team running from another direction.  
"NO!" I screamed as Don declared Dwayne and Junior in fifth place.

"Sixth!" he said as Kat and I got there.

Which team came in last? The Stepbrothers. That wasn't a big deal. But thing was, it was a double elimination. And of all people to get sent home at this point, it was the Reality TV Pros. Yes, those two! I never thought they'd leave so early!

There was only one good thing about that. Before the Pros recorded their retrospective, I noticed the Sisters whispering, and then Emma went over to them – well, over to Noah. I didn't actually hear what they said, but there was a lot of shy smiling and nodding, and...well...I saw them kiss. So..at least they left happy. The Stepbrothers were really mad about getting kicked off, saying they hated the show and they were going to make their own show.

But they weren't as unhappy as I was. The minute the eliminations were over, Junior approached me. "So," he smirked, "About that bet...I'd like to cash in my winnings."

I gave a sigh. "All right, I know. And I remember the conditions."

"Great!" Junior had a truly triumphant face. "This will be so much fun."

 **Hmmm...I think I'll leave it here now. You won't find out what Junior got Corrine to do until next chapter.**

 **I'm sorry to all fans of Noah and Owen, and especially to Nemma fans. But this isn't the main storyline for this story, and I wanted to get it out of the way in order to kick off other teams later on, same as why the Rockers left early. And I know the Ice Dancers should've won, but I just didn't see the Vegans losing an animal-based challenge, as long as they were calm (and probably let their rabbits go after they got the tip). But this does mean Laurie and Miles are on that hit list?**


	16. Chapter 16

**You know what's frustrating about "Maori or Less"? I was so pumped when I heard RR was going to my home country, then the episode was so...underwhelming. I mean, look at their portrayal of the haka! Or the way "Maori" is pronounced (the correct pronounciation is "Mow-ree", not "May-or-ee"). But...well...look, I'm going to squeeze everything good out of it that I can!**

 **Oh, and the Katy Perry song I reference is "One Of The Boys". Thanks for reviewing, Nicky Haugh, Silver Writer 0927, Bloodylilcorpse, King Goody Two-Shoes and Gage the Hedgehog.**

I woke up the next morning feeling...different. In a good way. I wasn't sure why until the events of last night came back to me.

Okay, so it wasn't fun at first. True, it was partly my fault by making that bet with Junior when neither of us knew that the challenge would be catching rabbits and flying to New Zealand, but still. Why did it have to be so close?

Thing was, boy did Junior take advantage of winning. He spent the whole evening doing absolutely nothing. Me? I had to run around for him. I mean, he literally made me run around in circles at one point when he didn't want anything in particular and was just going to milk his win over me as much as possible.

And none of those things were the reason I felt different. I'd woken up enough times in the race feeling as if I'd pushed myself to the limit. Maybe not by playing maid-of-all-work to a boy I happened to have a crush on, but I had pushed myself pretty far. Further than I'd ever pushed myself before.

It's just, on this particular night...it got to the point when Kat called to me that it was time we both went to sleep so we could concentrate on the upcoming challenge. And just as I was about to, Dwayne also called to Junior.

"Just a minute, Dad!" Junior called back, and checked that no one was watching before turning back to me. "Guess that's it for our bet. Thanks for losing." he said, chuckling. "At least I got a few hours' worth out of it."

"Yeah, and it was tough." I said, not seriously mad, but a tiny bit. "Did you seriously want me to run around in circles for no reason?"

Junior started laughing. "I didn't expect you to do that without questioning it!" he gasped. "I mean..." He composed himself, and went on, "That's what I wanted to say to you. Out of all the girls I've ever hung out with, you're the only one that had the guts to take a bet, and then not try to find a loophole, like exact words or something. You just decided to suck it up, and I kind of admire that. So...I was thinking...there was something I wanted to do, as kind of a thanks. I've only ever done it once before, so I hope it's okay."

And at that moment, the cutest guy I'd ever made friends with stepped forward, and ever-so-lightly, pressed his lips against mine.

No one had witnessed the kiss. Only we knew about it. It had felt nice, actually. I'd expected to feel nervous when it happened, but I didn't. And all I'd said was a stunned thanks, and he'd then laughed and asked if he was the first to kiss me. And of course I said yes, so he'd laughed again and said "Maybe we could practice more on each other later in the race, huh?"

And I knew that he was making a suggestion that we were...well, not just friends. And if that was as true as I intepreted, then...well, I'd have to talk to him to be sure, but I hoped...maybe he liked me the same way I liked him.

And that was where the difference was. I'd never been in this position before, but I knew that..well, I liked it.

But I didn't show it. It was time to start our next challenge, and although we weren't even in the top half (ten teams and we were sixth), we were pumped.

We grabbed our tip straight after Dwayne and Junior. "Go-go on the loco." I read. "Oh...like locomotion. Funny."

Kat looked up at one of the mountains. "We're probably going to miss the first train no matter what." she mused. "But we need to run if we want to catch the next one."

When we got up to the station, sure enough, there was no train. But Dwayne and Junior were both there. Dwayne was talking to the camera, and Junior was reading a magazine.

"Watcha reading?" I asked, looking over his shoulder.

Junior jumped and looked up at me. "Corrine, don't do that!" he said, shooting me a glare. "I thought you were Dad for a moment. If you really wanna know, though..." He showed me the article he was reading – about 'chilling out' an embarrassing parent.

"And so...what are you going to tell him if he asks you what you're reading?" I teased.

Junior picked up another magazine that was lying beside him. "I got this one on traditional tattoos. I mean, I'm going to read that one too, but it doubles as a decoy."

I smiled. "Kat's not really embarrassing me any more." I murmured. "Ever since Zimbabwe, she's stopped telling me common sense stuff that I figured out for myself years ago. I think she knows I'm not just a kid any more."

Junior grinned back at me and whispered "You think she'd freak if she knew what we did last night? I know Dad would – he still thinks I'm about five, even after that whole thing in Zimbabwe."

I shrugged. "Maybe. She said it was 'adorable', but it being real...maybe." I paused. "What _are_ we, anyway?"

"I kind of assumed we were good friends." Junior said casually. "Well, before that, anyway. I was going to ask you that question. I haven't asked you out yet, so...I don't know."

"Does that mean...you're going to ask me out?" I asked, with a bit of a smirk on my face.

"Maybe. But I can't until the race is over."

"But we can...you know...have fun together in between challenges." I pointed out.

Junior's grin widened. "Okay. We'll do that. Just...hang out and...'have fun'." I giggled at the quotation marks.

We didn't do anything at the train station, of course. We'd have to wait until we got a chance to hang out alone.

The train took both of us, but we didn't see the other team who got there just before the train left and managed to catch it.  
It turned out to be the Surfer Dudes. I'd barely spoken to them (except for asking their names at the start), but I still liked both of them. Every team had shown aggression, over-competitiveness or plain moodiness, except them. They were nice to everyone, all the time.

While Kat and Dwayne began talking, Geoff and Brody chatted to us. I sort of hovered around at first, feeling uncomfortable as the only girl, but they noticed and invited me into the conversation, and so I relaxed after a while.

They were telling us some wild airport story. "He zips me into a board bag while I'm snoozing..." Geoff began.

"And he/I put me/him on the airplane luggage belt thingy!" they chorused, bumping fists with us and laughing. I started humming an old Katy Perry song, the situation reminding me very much of the song – sitting with my crush and laughing along with him and a couple of other guys, just like I was one of them.

I mean, I think I was the only one who noticed when Brody got up and stopped by the booth our partners were in, but I wasn't sure why. I guessed that someone had asked his advice, but...

Could you believe it, the train behind us reached the station before us. As we arrived, we saw one of the teams leaving the Don Box, and grabbed our tip.

"Either-Or." Kat read. "Jump Down or Jump Around."

"So...what do those entail?" I asked.

Kat paused and read "Either bungy jump and grab a fish, or perform the traditional Māori haka...I guess Māori is the name of the indigenous race here." She smiled. "Why don't we do that one? Last time we had to do heights or sport, we did height. You know, window washing in Dubai instead of playing tennis? So...dance instead of jumping to our deaths on a cord."

So we did. Actually, we had to witness the Best Friends doing it. Devin seemed to have gone from denying that Shelley had dumped him to being furious about it, and was screaming his own chant as he did the moves. "I! Will! Crush! You! Under! My! Winter! Boots! You! Will! Beg! For! MERCY!"

In the end, the judges – a red-haired guy and a man with a Māori tattoo on his face – let them go, saying they did all right, and it was our turn to watch them demonstrate, as they made ferocious faces and chanted something warlike in what I assumed was Māori, which began with " _Ka mate, ka mate"_ and ended with " _Hie!"_

So Kat and I started trying to copy their moves as they demonstrated, so when it got to our turn, we had a good idea of the moves, screaming out the words as if they were sacred to us, even though we had no idea what they meant.

The judges accepted our performance and gave us a thumbs up. Meanwhile, Dwayne and Junior were waiting for their turn, and I gave them a thumbs up as we left.

We ended up in sixth place again, although this time we beat the Haters, Surfer Dudes, Father and Son and Sisters. Actually, Dwayne and Junior were the last to show up, but it was a non-elimination round. Thank heavens!

The Ice Dancers had come in first, and both of them seemed to finally be in a good mood. Even their smiles were genuine. However, Josee's expression in particular was still...malicious. I couldn't think of another way to describe it. I could tell Jacques was just really glad to finally be back at the top, while I think Josee was sort of enjoying the fact that coming in first meant everyone else was second or lower.

Laurie and Miles had come in second. "We did the haka." Laurie told me later that night. "The Ice Dancers got in first, but it meant we got to watch the demo and them before we did it. Although thing was, after they did it, Josee told the judges that they should try doing it on skates. Seriously."

I laughed. "Can you see _anyone_ doing those moves on ice? There is something seriously weird about her."

Laurie scrunched up her face in thought. "I do get some disturbing feelings from her and Jacques, actually. But mostly her. I wish I could see auras – I have a friend at home who often comments on people's auras. She was the one who suggested getting charity money from this show, actually. She was on Total Drama."

A memory swam back. It was the one when the island was overrun with mutants... "Wait!" I exclaimed. "Is she really small? With like, really long blonde hair?"

Laurie grinned. "I guess you saw that season. Yeah, that's Dawn. She's a little weird, but really nice. She's actually more Miles' friend – but she introduced me soon after we made friends. She's vegan, too, and she can even communicate directly with animals."

Junior and I did spend some time together, though. That evening, he pulled me aside and whispered "Did you see what Dad did to his face after the challenge?"

I paused, trying to remember if I'd seen anything. Then it clicked. "You mean...that Māori tattoo? I thought it was kind of cool."

"So did I," Junior admitted, "Until I read the magazine. Only Māori girls get that tattoo!"

"Oh." I couldn't help chuckling. "Burn." But I quickly changed the subject. "So...we getting away from these people for a little while?"

We shared a smile, and then went to tell our partners we were just going for a short walk, not too far away. Since we were together, they said it was OK, as long as we were back in ten minutes. It was dark and getting cold, but that was okay. We were soon warm.

Not like that, you guys! I meant from running around. The minute we were alone, Junior said "Tag! Try and catch me!"

"And what do I get if I tag you?" I asked teasingly, chasing him.

"You get me chasing you." Junior said simply. "But when I catch you...well, you'll see what happens."

He let me tag him, I know he did. I really wasn't fast enough. Then again, I'm pretty sure he knew I knew, and I didn't have to let him myself. He was quicker than me, and instead of tagging me, he pulled me close with one arm.

"Now that I have captured you," he said in a melodramatic tone, like a pantomime villain, "I shall take what I want from you!"

"And what do you want?" I pretended to whimper, playing along.

"Why, only this." And once again, just like that, we kissed. This time, it wasn't just touching lips. It was two pairs of lips moulding. I liked it even more than the first time.

As we walked back, Junior and I held hands, but we dropped them the minute we were back.

But not before we'd seen Kitty looking over at us. But at least all she did was smile and give a thumbs up.

While Junior went back to his teammate, I went up to Kitty. "How are things going?" I asked.

She paused and said, "We're going okay. Emma's missing Noah, but she says it means she can focus more on the race, so that's all good. And," she grinned, "She's mellowed out a LOT. She's having some trouble concentrating, because she keeps thinking about Noah, so for once I have to keep bringing her back. She's being a lot nicer to me now." She paused, then said "So. You and Junior, huh? Gotta say, I'm not surprised. "

"Kitty, you won't tell, right?" I asked. "I get the feeling Kat would be a bit disapproving of her twelve-year-old sister sneaking off to play kiss tag."

Kitty shrugged. "I won't tell, I promise." she said. "But I'm pretty sure you could talk her around. I mean, _I_ would have played kiss tag if I had a reciprocated crush when I was twelve."

 **And once again, Kitty has taken the role of "Shipper on Deck". But it doesn't matter, because she's cool. Just so you know, for all Kat's remarks about how "adorable" Corrine and Junior would be as a couple, she doesn't imagine that her twelve-year-old sister would already kiss – ten years ago, relationship ages were very different, and so she'd be kind of shocked that her little sister is already at that stage, and Corrine knows this, which is why she's keeping it quiet. She wouldn't have any problems with them holding hands, but she'd still tease Corrine and she wouldn't want her and Junior to go off by themselves.**


	17. Chapter 17

**Alberta, Canada. Oh yeah...elimination modifications come in again. I'll explain at the end. Thanks for reviewing, SuperKitty4789, Silver Writer 0927, Gage the Hedgehog, A.A Sliver-Knife, Gage the Hedgehog, Bloodylilcorpse, and Nicky Haugh.**

Being sixth out of ten teams wasn't actually that bad this time, since we made it onto the first plane. Three teams were left behind to go on a plane an hour behind. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The first tip told us to go to a dude ranch at Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump. And for once, it was in Canada, so we were pretty close to home, being Alberta.

By the way, about Dwayne's tattoo that Junior told me about...he later on told me they had trouble getting a taxi because every one that stopped looked at Dwayne's tattoo, burst out laughing, and then drove off. Looked like most New Zealanders were familiar with Māori tattoos, even the...from what I was told, they were called Pakeha...people. That might explain why they didn't make it onto the first flight with us.

Devin wasn't angry any more. He spent the whole flight telling Carrie about how if they won the race, Shelley would want him back. Yeah..bargaining. I was starting to see where this was going.

"What do you bet he gets totally depressed when we leave Canada, and then finally moves on?" I whispered to Kat as the plane took off.

"Mm?" Kat was distracted, looking through the entertainment. Finally, she smiled. "Reeni, I think there's something you might want to watch."

I looked at the TV collection as she instructed, went to reality shows, and..."Total Drama? I've watched seasons of it already!"

"But this is a chance to watch patterns in reality shows and what to look out for!" Kat said earnestly. "This isn't just a physical game – it's a mental game. There's a few episodes from every season. See -" She pointed at a Total Drama Island episode called 'Search and Do Not Destroy'. "Watch what Heather does in this one, and how it affects everyone else. Then watch this episode of World Tour..." She pointed at an episode called 'Anything Yukon Do, I Can Do Better' - "And note what kind of tactics Alejandro uses on Bridgette." I recognized a few of the names, but not all, but it didn't matter. Even though I didn't remember who Bridgette was, I soon got that she was the girl with the blonde ponytail.

So I obediently watched – Heather breaking up Trent and Gwen by kissing Trent and lying to him, Alejandro seducing Bridgette and eventually causing her to get her tongue stuck to a pole...I didn't see the connection until I realized that Bridgette kept talking about a boyfriend. Yeah...I remembered seeing her and Geoff. She even mentioned him in a confessional in the episode; " _When Geoff's around, I'm never tempted by other guys. Probably because when Geoff's around, we're always making out. But now that it's just me...I miss Geoff?"_

Then Kat told me to watch a few more episodes, and pointed out how Alejandro used Duncan and Gwen's forbidden kiss to weaken Courtney. And the way Heather tried to get information out of Sierra about the elimination patterns. And not just for those seasons. Across the seasons, she made me watch Sugar manipulating their team into making Ella sing in order to get her kicked off, Scott framing B for sabotaging their team, Justin leading his team in blackmailing Gwen, Courtney flirting with Justin in order to distract him and get Duncan's attention, Scarlett trying to get Max eliminated...mean trick after mean trick.

"So...you're telling me that some people will do anything to get ahead?" I said after three hours of episodes.

Kat nodded seriously. "There's always one. Think about what they had in common. I think I know who it is this season, especially based on a couple of conversations I had with Sanders."

I frowned. "When did you talk to Sanders?"

Kat shrugged. "A couple of times after challenges. You were with Junior all night after Australia. I talked to her then. So I heard about a few things that were probably done by..." she stopped, waiting. Then she added "Come on, Reeni, you must've picked out who it is this season!"

I let my mind run through who was left in the race. "The Ice Dancers." I didn't question it. They had to be the ones.

Kat nodded, anyway. "I get the feeling that Josee's the driving force, though. Jacques might be all right on his own. I know I don't need to tell you to watch yourself – you're twelve, after all – but I just wanted to make sure we both know which teams we need to watch out for."

There were pickup trucks waiting for us outside the airport, although three teams made it in front of us. Still, we made it second, just behind the Surfer Dudes. The Police Cadets and Ice Dancers seemed to have completely disappeared.

Kat got to the Don Box first. "Our next tip is in a huge pot of pork and beans. We need to eat it to take the tip."

I pulled a face. "Good thing I don't mind those foods."

Geoff and Brody were eating pretty fast, but we went quickly, too. Ryan and Stephanie were the next in, and I heard Stephanie say "We're in third, so all is not lost."  
"Only our love for each other." Ryan added, and I looked up long enough to see them high-five. Well, they weren't together, but high-fiving? They hated each other when we were in Zimbabwe, but they seemed on better terms now.

But Stephanie freaked out at the sight of beans.

Crimson and Ennui ran in around the same time as Laurie and Miles. Crimson gave a sigh as she began spooning up the beans, but as for our allies...they looked horrified.

"Okay," Laurie said finally, "Let's just eat the beans. Leave the pork. We know the tip's in there – we just reach in and grab it after we've finished the beans."

"But Laurie, won't you be mad if we get a penalty?" Miles said, looking anxious.

"I don't care." Laurie said firmly. "I said I wouldn't sacrifice my morals again, and I won't. Not even for the money. Even if it means we lose."

And they began to eat.

The teams on the second flight all arrived before the Cadets and Ice Dancers got in. By that time, Kat and I were spooning up the last of the food, and the Surfer Dudes had moved on to attempting to ride a mechanical bull for eight seconds.

Kat took the tip, this time. She took one look at it and said "It's a random Botch. According to this, _you_ have to take the bull on."

As she spoke, Brody was flung off for the third time.

I paused, and said "I think I can risk watching Brody one more time to see what he might be doing wrong."

And I instantly noticed that Brody was clinging to the bull, but not the right way. I needed to loop my arm around something in order to stay on.

I didn't actually manage it the first time, but the second time, I made it, and Kat and I went straight to the Chill Zone.

"Sisterly Strangers, congratulations." Don greeted us. "You're in first place!"

Kat and I looked at each other. Then we both screamed and hugged. Winning? That was SO awesome!

The Surfer Dudes arrived next, followed by the Haters.

"In your face, fourth place!" Stephanie yelled. "Uh...no offence." she added to the Best Friends, who arrived next.

"So we're in fourth?" Devin frowned. "I'm never gonna win Shelley back, am I?"

Crimson and Ennui (oh, and Loki) arrived fifth. "What happened to you two?" Don asked. "You were the second to finish the bull ride!"

"Yeah," Crimson said, "But then we found a skull rotting in the sun, so..."  
"No, no, stop talking, forget I asked, you're team number five, go."

The Vegans arrived next, but as they'd predicted, Don gave them a penalty for only eating the beans and not the pork – a half-hour penalty, in fact. Pretty big.

And Laurie, despite looking a bit upset, kept her cool. "I'm glad I stuck to my morals this time." she said defiantly. "No competition is worth any more animals."

"I'm proud of you, Laurie." Miles smiled at her. "For being able to overcome your general competitivy."

By the time the Ice Dancers had arrived (and I thought I caught a glimpse of Josee glaring at us for winning), there was still thirteen minutes left until the penalty ended, and Dwayne and Junior were the only ones who hadn't shown up.

I was getting worried. I didn't want Junior to go home yet! But I didn't want Laurie and Miles to go home, either. I liked them both, and while Kat and I had more of an understanding, I still felt more comfortable going to Laurie if I needed any older sister-type advice.

Dwayne and Junior showed up within five minutes of the penalty ending.

"Tofu break, ladies." Don said to the two girls. "You've been cut from the competition."

I ran to say goodbye. "I'm going to miss you guys so much!" I said. "I'm sorry that you're leaving."

"It's okay, Corrine." Miles managed a wan smile. "We left for sticking to our morals."

Laurie, who looked more upset, didn't just smile. She gave me a huge hug. "Thanks for being such a great friend, Corrine. I'm really going to miss you."

"I'll miss you too." I said, whispering so Kat wouldn't hear, "You're like another big sister to me." That made Laurie smile, just a little bit.

Oh well. I guess that it I really needed advice and couldn't ask Kat, I could try Kitty. She was cool and seemed like she'd be okay with it.

This time, Junior and I didn't need to wait until it was nearly dark. We went off together that afternoon to be alone. In fact, we came across the skull that had distracted the Goths.

"Gross!" I shuddered. "I don't get how those two can love those things!"

"I like skull designs," Junior admitted, "But not real ones. Especially not with all those flies buzzing around it."

This time, I tagged Junior, but he caught me easily. It was becoming a tradition, go off somewhere, chatting, and play kiss tag, then walk back hand in hand. This time, after we got bored of chasing each other around to get our kiss, we just sat down next to a cliff for a while.

"You know," Junior said, with a sly glint in his eyes, "I think we could both improve how we play that game..."

I pretended to be offended. "Are you saying my kisses aren't good enough for you?"

"No, I'm saying you're not good at the 'tag' part of the game." Junior teased. "In all seriousness, I like the way you kiss better than I liked the way my first kiss kissed. No, I think I need to practice. Do you mind?"

Did I mind? No, I liked him kissing me. I mean, it was obviously an excuse to kiss me without having to chase me.

After a few times, Junior paused and said "Corrine...there's something I wanna try, but I won't do it unless it's okay with you. Can I...you know, stick my tongue in when I kiss you? I want to see what it's like."

I thought about it. Finally, I nodded. "Okay. But if I don't like it this time, you don't do it again."

"Fair enough."

But I did like it. It was gross to think about, but when Junior and I kissed with tongues...it was kind of fun. New and a bit scary, like standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon with an insecure safety rail, but fun.

When we walked back, hand in hand, we didn't need to say it for it to be real. We were a couple now. It didn't matter that I was twelve and he was thirteen. I was still his girlfriend.

 **Okay, that's as far as it's going to go. French kisses, and that's it – Corrine's way too young for anything more. I was sort of inspired by the scene at the start of Malorie Blackman's "Noughts and Crosses" when Callum first asks Sephy if he can kiss her to see what it's like, then without warning turns it into a French kiss. Great book by the way – it portrays racism accurately, reflecting things like Martin Luther King Jr, the Black Panthers, the Little Rock Nine kids...except that in this case, the African-Americans are the ruling race and the white people are second-class. As for mixed race...well, not mentioned until Callie Rose in the sequels "Knife Edge" and "Checkmate" - anyway, go read those. Hope you liked this chapter.**


	18. Chapter 18

**Arctic Circle? Well, there's a little change here. Because the Sisterly Strangers won and not the Surfer Dudes...thanks for reviewing, Nicky Haugh, Silver Writer 0927, SuperKitty4789, Bloodylilcorpse, Gage the Hedgehog, Commander Liv, and PorcelainPuppetLady.**

Just like the time before in New Zealand, Kitty saw us coming back, and although we weren't holding hands when she saw us (because other people saw us coming back), she knew what we'd been up to, and grinned at both of us.

"You're sure she won't tell anyone?" Junior whispered. "Not even her sister?" I'd told him I'd spoken to her when we first noticed.

"Kitty's chill and nice." I assured him. "She promised she wouldn't tell, and I know of another secret that she's kept...and no, I don't know it." I lied. "I just know it's to do with Carrie." Of course I was referring to Carrie wanting to escape the Friendzone and being in love with Devin, but I couldn't tell anyone that. It wasn't my secret to tell.

The next day came, and Kat grabbed our tip. "We're going to the Arctic Circle!" she said excitedly. "We have to take a plane with one other team."

I stretched up to look over her shoulder. "And there's another boomerang in play! Just one, though. I hope we get it this time!" In a whisper, I added "Think how sweet it would be if we were the ones to toss the Ice Dancers!"

Kat giggled, but whispered "You better hope that comment wasn't heard by anyone else. Imagine if it got back to them!"

And because the Surfer Dudes were the second team, they were on the plane with us. It was nice, because we could chat to them like Junior and I had in New Zealand. They were just such open, genuine guys, a breath of fresh air on reality shows. And like I said before, they were super nice and not that competitive. I mean, I mostly teasingly told other teams they were going down, and other teams would say that to me too, but not Geoff and Brody. They said nothing about the competition at all, not once.

We didn't get the boomerang, but the tip gave us a Botch or Watch.

"My turn." Kat said. "I have to find a ring in the snow and toss it onto a narwhal."

Geoff had major trouble just finding his first ring, while Kat found them easily, but failed to ring the narwhal tusk, several times.

Everyone arrived, two by two. Stephanie and Ryan were the first to finish the ring toss (well, Ryan).

"I put us into first place!" he cried.

"Can we go now or do you want to stay and build a statue of yourself?" Stephanie said impatiently.

I started making a confessional. "I don't know about those Haters. Thing is, I swear that I saw them coming close to being lovey-dovey a few times last week. If I'm right, Ryan actually addressed Stephanie as 'babe' in Alberta – now that's a sign of still being into her. "

As Kat finally ringed a narwhal and went to grab the snowmobile we would take to the next Don Box, Josee, who was throwing a ring at one of the narwhals herself, glanced at me and said "Oh, hey, just wanted to congratulate you on staying in this game so long. You're still the youngest player, aren't you? It's nice to see you aren't intimidated by all us more experienced players."

Talk about intimidated! But I reminded myself to stand my ground and said "Thank you, Josee. It's nice that you're so supportive – it makes me feel a lot better about being up against bodybuilders like Ryan and Olympic-standard athletes like you and Jacques." Then I followed Kat and jumped on the snowmobile, just as a narwhal popped up right next to the Goths and Ennui simply dropped his ring and it landed in the right place.

Actually, the Goths must've taken a different path to us, because they had arrived before us. However, the Haters were still at the Don Box, arguing about something.

"Now the Goths are ahead of us!" Ryan was saying. "Way to blow our lead! Why can't you do something right for a change, and use the boomerang?"

Stephanie's eyes were on fire, and she screamed "I BOOMERANG RYAN!"

"WHAT?! We're on the same team!"

Just as Don arrived to let them know what they were doing, I hit the Don Box. "All-In. We just need to build an igloo."

This was a relatively easy but time-consuming action. We just had to be careful that the blocks of ice were placed gently so they didn't crumble.

Actually, Kat made a confessional about Stephanie boomeranging her own team. "How angry do you have to be to do something that would ensure you losing? Especially since I can tell just how much Stephanie wants to win."

As we built, I heard an exchange between the Best Friends and Goths. "Wanna form an alliance?" Devin asked them.

"What?!" Carrie exclaimed.

There was a pause before Ennui replied for his team "Thanks, but we don't do alliances." Good to know for the future. We needed new allies, but obviously the Goths wouldn't agree to it.

But in spite of everything, the Surfer Dudes actually finished the igloo first. I saw Josee saying something to Geoff, and he looked really depressed for a while, made a confessional, and then he and Brody had some conversation and got finished in record time. Even though they were by far not the first to get to the challenge.

"Hey, hey – you! We're done!" Josee called to the local.

I placed the last block on our igloo and called "Excuse me! We're done!" We got a thumbs up and ran to the Chill Zone.

The Surfer Dudes were looking happy. Brody was actually _crying_ with happiness. But the Ice Dancers – they were in second place, and didn't look happy at all.

Josee walked towards the snowman Don was standing next to. "This is what I think of second place." And in seconds, the snowman was a mound of snow on the ground.

"Stop! You're hurting Chilly Billy!" Don cried. Josee simply laughed as she left it on the ground. Don dropped to his knees. "NO! BILLYYYYYYY!"

"Wow." I whispered to Kat. "I don't know whether to laugh or be stoic."

"Don's our host." Kat reminded me. "I don't think we should laugh at him. If he's anything like Chris, he'll find some way to put us in last place. We're in third right now."

Last place actually went to the Haters. The Cadets were close. I was very glad, actually. Since the twins and Vegans left, Junior was the only friend I had left on the show, and after their close escape last time, I was scared that they might lose.

But in any case, it was a non-elimination round, so Ryan and Stephanie stayed around. As a matter of fact, I heard them saying that they still had feelings for each other, and that the competition broke them up. But after that, they started arguing again. Nothing could get those two back together.

Junior and I did our usual routine of walking away together and playing kiss tag, but this time, we also made snow angels. And also, it was really easy to fall over. So at one point during our game, I tagged Junior and then tripped, also knocking him down and falling on top of him. We were so close to each other, and I froze.

Then Junior reached up, touched lips with me and then flipped us and got up. "You're it!" he called, running off.

"Hey, no fair!" I called back, jumping up to run after him.

We played almost until it got dark, then we walked back, holding hands. When we got back, no one noticed us, and Junior got a little smirk on his face.

"Wonder if anyone would notice if we kissed right here, right now?" he whispered.

"I don't think they would..." I admitted.

"There's only one way to find out." Junior said, and our lips were pressed up again. As we broke apart, no one seemed to have noticed, except for figure, standing a way away from everyone except her partner. As she saw, her annoyed expression melted into a smirk, and I shivered.

Junior saw, too. "Is that Josee looking at us? You think she'll tell?"

"Probably." I muttered. "At least I know Kat doesn't like her and might not listen."

"But Dad will." Junior said anxiously. "I just have to hope it won't ruin things. He's been trusting me a bit more since I gave him a major wake-up call about some stuff in New Zealand. I still don't think he'd take me having a girlfriend in stride, though." He scowled.

 **As we know, Josee loves to mess with the other teams. So there's no way she's going to keep that kiss to herself, is there? You'll have to wait and see what happens in the next chapter!**


	19. Chapter 19

**Right. Indonesia. Oh wow, shit will hit the fan before they even leave! Thanks for reveiwing, Nicky Haugh (I feel like that would just be adding unnecessary drama in, so sorry, but no...although Corrine vs Josee may come up...), Bloodylilcorpse, SuperKitty4789, Gage the Hedgehog, Silver Writer 0927, StarHeart Specials, and A.A Sliver-Knife (to be fair, they're quite young, and that's how I usually write pre-teen relationships).**

I didn't have to wait until the next morning for Kat to start questioning me. At least that was something. "Reeni," she said seriously, "Is there something you want to tell me?"

I felt my face grow hot, but all I said was "Like what?"

"Maybe, like...what you and Junior have been doing every time you two go off together after challenges."

"Hang out. Have fun. Play games." I said, which was technically true.

Kat folded her arms. "Look, Corrine." Whoa, okay, calling me by my real name was a danger alert. "Josee talked to me this evening. She said she saw you and Junior lip-locking, and-"

"And why did you believe her?" I demanded. "She's playing mind games with you!"

"But she had a point." Kat said in a firm tone. "What's so important that you can't do in front of anyone else? Look, I'm responsible for you in this race, but I trusted you to be responsible yourself! You're far too young to be kissing anyone!"

I gave up all pretence of having not done it. "You were the one who said Junior and I made an adorable couple!" I argued. "And I have friends who have had their first kiss! What's wrong with it? Junior likes me and I like him. It's not a big deal!"

Kat calmed down visibly. "All right." she said. "I understand that it isn't wrong, what you're doing. But I have a rule for the race – no more sneaking off with Junior to kiss. Also, I'm pretty sure Josee has told Dwayne, and if he doesn't want you and Junior to talk to each other any more, you need to adhere to that rule."

I groaned. "Aww, Kat! All we're doing when we sneak off is playing tag! We can't do that with everyone around – doesn't Josee seeing us show that we haven't been that subtle about it? She just happened to be the only one looking in our direction."

"But my rule still stands. Stay at the Chill Zone outside of challenges unless I give you permission to leave." Kat said sternly. "Otherwise, we'll quit the race. Clear?" Her face softened. "I don't _want_ to quit, but I don't feel comfortable about you sneaking off with a boy and being alone with him."

I didn't argue further. There was no point.

The next day, our flight was to Indonesia. There were supposed to be three flights, but a few narwhals busted the wheels on two planes and we had to all take the same one (by the way, Ryan had stopped trying to bait Stephanie, and no matter what she said, he would always reply with "Yes, Stephanie").

I only managed to get a chance to speak to Junior by the bathrooms, an hour before the plane landed.

"Kat says I'm too young to be kissing anyone and that we're not allowed to be alone together."

"That's better than what I got." Junior muttered. "Dad basically said that we have to be chaperoned – not only do we have to be around other people, but they have to be watching us. At least, he made it clear that it wasn't that he didn't trust me. It's just...it was either that or the...you know...the talk, and I couldn't go through that."

I understood. I didn't need to have been given the Talk to know how embarrassing it would be.

Nevertheless, I groaned. "Why did it have to be Josee who saw us? How many people would've actually told on us? Kitty was really cool about it – and I don't think Devin or Carrie would've told on us. Or the Goths."

"Devin's gone into depression anyway." Junior remarked. "I heard Ennui talking to the cameras yesterday, and he said 'when did Devin get so cool'...because he was that depressed."

"That's a sure sign he's nearly moved on from Shelley." I mused. "Maybe Carrie has a chance." I paused, checking to see if anyone was looking, and then looked back at Junior. "One last kiss while we're still alone?"

Junior pretended to think about it, then grinned. "Why not?" And for the first time, he put his arms around me. This time, the kiss was different. I'd liked our kisses so far, but this felt different. It was passionate but polite, playful but serious, like it was every kiss we'd shared, whether a dare, a thanks, a goodnight, or just kiss tag. And I loved it.

"Well," I said awkwardly, "I guess we can talk after the challenge."

"Yeah," Junior said, his voice just as awkward, "At least if someone's listening in on us."

Kat acted as if she didn't think the new rule had affected me. She was just as she always was, and it made me so angry. I spent the rest of the flight trying to meditate, desperate to focus. I managed ten minutes near the end. I would have been able to do it for longer, but I was just so annoyed that it took me a while to calm down enough. Annoyed at Kat for taking exception to me kissing a guy, annoyed that Junior and I could only talk if we were supervised, but most of all annoyed at Josee for causing it. Why did she want to tell on us? Why? I wanted so badly to ask her, but I couldn't – I was too wary of her to do anything.

We had to take taxis to a beach in Indonesia to get to the next Don Box, passing a crossing that warned us about Komodo dragons. We were actually one of the last there, but we got there quickly enough to hear Devin saying "Danger? We all die eventually!"

"We should hang out more." Ennui said to him as he and Crimson arrived.

The challenge was an All-In. "Looks like we're going to be getting up close with Komodo dragons." Kat commented. "We have to get a vial of venom from them."

"Well, how are we going to do that?" I said, struggling to get my mind off my own personal issues in order to focus on the challenge.

Carrie turned to the camera, out of earshot of Devin. "Okay, if Devin ends up going goth, I am _not_ going goth for him!" Suddenly, she sighed. "Yes, I would."

I walked up to her. "Carrie? I think there might be some good news for you."

The blonde turned around, expectant. "What is it, Corrine?"

"The way Devin's been acting – it's typical for someone who's just been dumped. Devin's in Depression right now, everyone says. I've read that the next stage is the last one – acceptance."

Carrie's face lit up as she realized what I meant. "So then he'll be over Shelley completely." she thought out loud. "Thanks, Corrine!" She paused, and added, "How are things going for you?"

I gave a sigh. "They were going good, actually. Junior and I were keeping it quiet, but we've been going off together and playing kiss tag in a few locations. But now that a certain Ice Queen saw us and spilled it, Kat says I'm too young and I'm not allowed to leave the Chill Zones outside of challenges. And Junior said that according to Dwayne, he's not allowed to talk to me unless we're being expressly supervised."

Carrie looked surprised. "You're twelve, aren't you? That's young, but not too young for just a few games of kiss tag. As long as you're not doing anything past that..."

"Of course not!" I said, truthfully enough. I hesitated to add the next part, but then I said "Would you say that to Kat, as a favour to me?"

Carrie looked a little unprepared. "I can do that, and I might even try talking to Dwayne – after all, Junior's thirteen – that's definitely old enough. But I might not be able to change things. Anyway, we better get on with the challenge. I'll see you later!"

Everyone was scattered around, trying to work out how to do the challenge. Stephanie was running from a dragon, screaming. Geoff and Brody were trying to find fire extinguisher. I heard MacArthur yelling from nearby.

Then I saw the effect the Goths had. The dragons ran away as they walked up. "Spare some venom?" Crimson said, holding out their vial.

The dragons didn't react, except to look scared. Crimson's reply? "Uh, like, fine. Whatever."

Kat was watching, too. "You know, the Goths would be a good team to ally with." she said thoughtfully. "They're hard to crush and very focused."

I frowned. "I don't think they'd agree to an alliance. Devin asked them in the Arctic and Ennui said they didn't do alliances."

"We need to pair up with another team, though, now that Laurie and Miles are out." Kat said firmly. "Maybe the Sisters would be good. They've lost their allies since the Reality TV Pros left."

As we thought, we heard another team trying their luck. This time, it was the Ice Dancers. Jacques was speaking to himself. "You can handle a venomous reptile." he was saying. "You've skated with Josee for years."

"Ahem!"

I had to struggle not to burst out laughing. Venomous reptile was a pretty good description of Josee.

But our thoughts were short-lived when we had to dive behind a rock to avoid a stampede of Komodo dragons. The Goths were back.

"Come back, you cowards." Crimson called.

"This is hopeless." Josee raged. "It's time to forget the challenge and focus on destroying the others."

"Because that worked _so_ well last time!" Jacques argued. "That was sarcasm."

"I know! Just follow my lead."

For the record, manipulation doesn't work on Crimson and Ennui. Jacques and Josee tried to use Loki's safety to scare them into stopping the challenge. What happened? Loki apparently had an idea that actually got the Komodo dragons to drool into a bucket while he waited on a tree as bait. Then the Goths left with a full vial.

"Let's grab some too!" I hissed, taking the vial off Kat and scooping up some of the venom myself.

As I did so, I heard whispers from the Ice Dancers, who had been watching too.

"That is one B-A-D bunny."

"Well, that plan backfired. And much faster this time."

"Who cares? We have what we need!"

The kid we needed to present the vial to handed us our travel tip. "Another All-In." Kat told me. "Prepare to meet your loom."

I looked up at her. "Meaning?"

"Find a particular carpet in hundreds – with the Ridonculous Race logo on it."

Which is how we ended up in first place for the second time. The Goths took second pretty calmly, but the Ice Dancers in third? Oh, they took that pretty hard.

Actually, while I was waiting to take a turn in the confessional backdrop that night, I heard Josee through the door (not common – definitely meaning she was speaking too loudly). "I can't believe that stupid blondie and the little brat took gold! And those pasty-faced _freaks_ got silver! I'll bet they're just loving this!"

When it was my turn, I said "Josee's taking not coming in first pretty hard. I wish I had the courage to talk to her, think of a way to make her not hate me. But meanwhile, I'm just going to have to deal with it...and hate her, too. Thanks for calling me a little brat, Ice Queen."

Could you credit it, Dwayne and Junior ended up in last. By the time everyone else had made it to the Chill Zone, they were still looking through the carpets.

I went back to the carpets without gauging Kat's reaction, and saw Junior straightaway.

"Dad got bitten by one of the Komodo dragons." he explained. "Apparently, he'll be all right in a week, but I had to look for the rug alone, so..."

I paused. "Hey, you said we had to be supervised, right?" I said. "Technically, we are." I gestured to Dwayne, who was in no position to register whatever he saw, but was there. "And did anyone say we weren't allowed to kiss?"

Junior grinned at me. And we kissed, long and soft. We knew that we were saying goodbye.

"I'll see you at school, I guess." we said in unison, laughing.

Kat caught up with me at that moment. "Corrine Andrew, you know the rules perfectly well! This is the last chance. One more time and we quit the race!"

I sighed and pretended to repent, but winked at Junior as he began making the farewell confessional.

 **Not a happy ending, but I felt like there wasn't much else left for this plotline. Corrine and Junior will see each other again in New York, but you'll have to wait until then.**


	20. Chapter 20

**Fine, so I had some ideas for what should happen here...oh, and yeah, I don't own any content related to the Spice Girls that I referenced in this chapter. Thanks for reviewing, Silver Writer 0927, Nicky Haugh, SuperKitty4789, Bloodylilcorpse, Gage the Hedgehog and StarHeart Specials.**

Carrie spoke to Kat, like she'd promised, and reported back to me. "I think Kat knows you're mature enough to handle a simple relationship like that, but she's having trouble accepting it." she told me. "When she was your age, it was uncommon for a first kiss to be at twelve. Give her time – she should come around."

"Thanks." I smiled. I paused and added, "Hey, Carrie...would you and Devin be interested in forming an alliance with us?"

"Not at this point." Carrie answered. "Before I do anything, I need to get to the point where I'm able to tell Devin how I feel. After that, maybe..." She smiled kindly. "Thanks, though."

Well, how was I to know what would happen in the next location?

As a matter of fact, I meditated, and it gave me the idea to do something that was really risky and something that I would never do again in my life. It may have been a good idea, or a really life-threatening idea, but I felt like I needed to do it. If I didn't, I'd spend the rest of the race wishing I had, I knew it. Even if it ultimately didn't do anything, or even make things worse.

I decided to psych myself up and put myself out to talk to Josee. I was sick of her being in the race – sick of her tantrums, her mind games, her sabotage attempts. I couldn't say that, of course – she intimidated me far too much. But I could try to find a way to imply it

So that night, I sought the team out, ignoring every instinct that told me not to. "Josee?" I said, my voice really soft and shy. "May I speak with you for a second?"

The female Ice Dancer narrowed her dark eyes at me, studying my expression, then her own face became unreadable and she nodded. "All right. But only for a few minutes."

When we were on our own, I managed to smile at her as I addressed the first thing I wanted to say. I didn't think about it, though – if I had, I would've lost my nerve. I just let the words pour out. "First of all," I said, "I'm sorry that we're so competitive in this race, but I should be doing my best. If you win, you win, if we win, we win. Simple as that, so could you not hate us for trying to not get eliminated? Wait, I'm not finished," I said as Josee opened her mouth to say something. "Also, you can be mad about losing, but _please_ don't refer to me as a brat. That was mean."

I knew I'd gone too far at that moment. Josee's eyes were on fire. "You _are_ a brat!" she said, her voice low and dangerous. "Why do you think you have the right to tell me what to do? I will do whatever it takes to win, especially if it means taking you down – _and_ your stupid sister. Yeah, she thought I was just concerned when I told her about you playing around with that friend of yours, but it caused some issues for you, didn't it?"

"Why are you doing this?" I asked helplessly. "I know you want to win, but...please, _please,_ tell me why you hate me so much. This isn't just about winning – I mean, Kat and I won this time – you're striking out at me!"

"Yeah, but it almost threw you off your game, didn't it? Couldn't I be mad that you won anyway?" Josee pointed out. "And you're lucky to get that much out of me. Now go away before I come to my senses and slap you in the face like your useless parents should've done several times over!" She stalked off herself.

I relayed this whole conversation to Kat (but leaving out the part where Josee basically admitted she'd told Kat about Junior and I to stir up trouble), knowing how she'd react. And she did. "She called Mom and Dad useless? Honestly?" She scowled, and said, her eyes full of concern, "You shouldn't have said anything, you know. This means she's going to target us next!"

"She's been targeting us a bit anyway." I muttered. "And we won the last challenge, so they'll be after us and the Goths for beating them." At least, while the Junior thing had made problems between us, we could put them aside in order to win – and to strategize and be vigilant, like we were doing right now.

Our location for the next day was Las Vegas. As we boarded, Kat started acting a bit nervous for some reason. So I asked her.

"Um...Kat...is there something wrong?"

My sister turned to look at me. "It's that obvious, huh?"

I waited to see if she told me.

"I..." Kat mumbled, "It's just...you asked Carrie to speak to me on your behalf, didn't you? She didn't say that, but I think that's what she was doing."

I froze, trying to think of a way out. But nothing came to me. "So...you're going to make us quit?"

"No, no!" Kat said quickly. "No, that's not the reason I said that! Carrie just made me realize that some of your points were right. I'm a lot older than you, and I forget that times have changed. When I was in school, no one even kissed until high school. I forget that middle school nowadays is just like high school was for me...and I can't blame you for wanting to be in a more grown-up world, now that you're starting there." She smiled. "I handled that situation with you and Junior wrong. I know it's not a big deal to kiss at your age nowadays. But," she added, "I still don't want you to leave the Chill Zone on your own for the rest of the race."

I nodded. I could agree to that. "Thanks." I said softly. But it would take a while for me to completely forgive her for it. I mean, I wanted to, but bitterness just kept welling up in me.

Before we landed, I noticed Stephanie sitting at the back on her own, looking forlorn. I looked over at Kat. "Hey, do you think it's not unwise if I go and keep Stephanie company for a little while?"

"She's not with Ryan right now, is she?" Kat asked. "I think they're on better terms, but if you talk to either of them in close proximity with each other, they will probably start another argument."

I looked around, and spotted the gentle giant further up. "No." I told Kat as my eyes were searching. "Stephanie's at the back, and Ryan's over there."

"Then by all means, go." Kat smiled. "But if it seems like you get into another situation like you did with Josee last night, bail."

I didn't need to worry, actually. I sat down next to Stephanie, and shyly said "Um, hi!"

Stephanie turned, looking a little annoyed at first, but when she saw me, that expression faded and she said "Oh, hi, honey! What's your name again?"

I questioned her calling me an affectionate diminutive, since we'd barely spoken, but I didn't do it out loud.

"Corrine." I told her. "I thought I'd come talk to you, since you were on your own."

"Sure!" Stephanie said warmly. "I've wanted to talk to you, actually, but, you know, all the stress of this competition..." She gave a theatrical sigh. "It's tough. I'm sure it's tough on you, too."

I nodded, not wanting to disagree. "I mean," I said, "My partner tries her best, but she doesn't really know me. I got into major trouble with her between the last two locations and challenges. It's only now that she realizes that she was underestimating my maturity."

Stephanie laughed humourlessly. "I guess that is hard. You're little and pretty, though, so it makes everyone think that you're innocent, too. Anyway, try having _my_ partner!" She started to rant about how "spineless" Ryan was and how he never listened to her, but as she did, I started catching little phrases that told me she was keeping back something. Like she was trying to hate Ryan more than she really did – maybe even that she wanted to get back together with him.

Finally, she finished, and smiled at me, since I'd listened and taken it all in. "Hey," she said, with a proper smile now. "Why don't we hang out a bit between challenges? Maybe ally with each other later on, vent on our partners when they get annoying. Just you and me. Yeah?"

I frowned. "But if we make an alliance, don't we kind of...have to talk to our partners?"  
"Oh, that's only part of it!" Stephanie said, waving a hand. "But if we make an alliance and do challenges together, you can push your sister off on Ryan and make them do the same parts of the All-Ins, while you and me hang out. And then we might end up facing each other in the finale..."

I wasn't sure about this idea, although the thought of getting to the finale appealed hugely. Stephanie had a point. And she seemed nice when she wasn't with Ryan. But the way she acted in the challenges – all competitive and crazy...what if she got like that during the alliance?

Oh well. What did I have to lose? I grinned back at Stephanie. "Why not? So, secret alliance for now?"

"Sure." Stephanie said, adding in a whisper, "We'll talk later, okay?"

Well, at least I'd made another friend before the challenge, even if she was a little crazy sometimes and had tendencies towards treating me like a kid. We had to take a taxi out to the desert and find another Don Box.

"Either-Or." Kat read out. "Dune Buggy Bonanza or Magic Show." She hesitated, then said, "Here, Reeni, you choose this one."

I read the descriptions. "So...make a lion disappear or get three flags while your partner drives..." I frowned. "They both sound super hard. Let's try Magic Show. It sounds like fun."

As a matter of fact, the Ice Dancers, Goths and Haters had all chosen it, too. Great.

Basically, the lion and assistant would be in a cage. The magician would pull a lever to get a curtain to cover the cage, and a trapdoor would open, dropping the lion down. When the curtain was lifted, only the assistant would be there.

"So who's going to be the assistant?" I asked.

"Me." Kat said firmly. So we had to get dressed – me in a top hat and bow tie, and Kat in a sparkly purple dress and white gloves. As she came out, Jacques also pranced out in the dress.

"I have to wear _that?"_ This came from Ryan, who had been arguing with Stephanie over who took what role. "Nah, no way!"

"I know," Jacques said, positively preening, "I look great."

Kat and I muffled our giggles. "Looks like Josee didn't have to persuade him to dress girly." I whispered.

"Maybe he's a closet transvestite." Kat whispered back, and we both collapsed.

Because they'd gotten dressed first, we had to wait for the Ice Dancers to try the trick first before we could try. Luckily, they didn't do great. When Josee pulled the lever, the lion was still there.

Jacques screamed. "The divider, Josee, can you put the divider back?" he begged, almost cutting himself off with another scream.

Kat and I failed the first time, too, although Kat didn't scream, and the lion didn't seem as interested in her as it was in Jacques for some reason.

Ryan would've been fine, except that he couldn't fit through the cage door. By the time Stephanie shoved him in, the dress ripped and Ryan was in his boxers, with his ex-girlfriend laughing at him.

I heard their exchange, actually. "Hey, don't look at my butt!" Ryan protested.

"You wish I'd look at your butt." Stephanie scoffed. "Get in there!"

Kat gave a sigh. "Well, guess that censoring doesn't work in real life. Sorry you had to hear that."

I laughed. "Please! They used to date – I wouldn't be surprised if Stephanie was laughing to pretend she didn't find Ryan hot when he was hardly dressed."

Kat shook her head at them. "They are definitely going to be dating again by the end of the season."

At that moment, I considered telling her about the secret alliance. But I didn't, although by this time, the bitterness I felt when I thought about the whole argument was lessening. Maybe I'd stop being angry completely soon. Weird – our shared moment laughing at Jacques seemed to be the main reason. We bonded over giggle therapy, I guess.

The lion didn't disappear that time, either. It was too busy laughing at Ryan.

The Goths, though – well, Loki ended up being swallowed by the lion. Yeah, really.

Josee burst out laughing, then quickly straightened her face and said "Oh...I mean...so sorry for your loss."

But you know what? Ennui went into the cage, reached into the lion's mouth, and retrieved Loki. The local magician approved them, and I heard him proposing that they actually work as magicians, but both of them shook their heads and left for the Chill Zone.

After a second try from the Ice Dancers, the lion was trying to eat Jacques.

"What's with you?" Josee demanded. "Are you hiding hamburgers in your dress?"

"It's not my fault, I'm irresistible!" Jacques told her, preening again.

Stephanie and Ryan switched roles in the end, since they weren't going to get anything done if the lion just laughed at Ryan the whole time. But they got it done.

Kat and I were up again, and this time, we made up a vocal signal to show if the lion was gone or not, so we'd pass.

We had it. Kat's screams were in tune with the first line of a song by her favourite Nineties band – the Spice Girls. And she'd chosen her favourite song - "Say You'll Be There".

" _I'm giving you everything, all that joy can bring, this I swear..."_ I sang under my breath as I pulled the lever. Sure enough, the lion was gone, and Kat was still there. The magician gave us a thumbs up, and I even cheekily waved to the Ice Dancers. Oh, the look of fury on Josee's face!

"That felt so good, even though she probably hates me even more." I commented.

"She'll get over it." Kat said lightly. "Although I thought she was right to tell me about you and Junior at the time, I'm not dumb. I always knew she did it to cause trouble between us. And we can't let that happen."

And just like that, I'd truly forgiven Kat for that whole thing. I smiled, genuinely this time.

We ended up in third place, just ahead of the Cadets and Sisters, but behind the Goths and Haters.

The Surfer Dudes were in a strange predicament, according to Don. "First to finish, sixth to arrive!"

But all the two of them did was cheer. "Best day yet!" Brody yelled.

The Best Friends were last to arrive, just behind the Ice Dancers (why did it have to happen that way?).

"Did we make it?" Carrie asked Don breathlessly.

"Yes!" The duo cheered. "In last place. I'm sorry, but you're going home."

And then...the weirdest thing happened.

"Carrie, I'm so sorry." Devin said. "It's totally my fault, but I realized something." He placed his hands on her shoulders, his touch gentle.

"What is it?" Carrie asked, looking surprised and a little annoyed.

"I know this may not be the best time to say this, after that lion thing, but when I thought I'd lost you, I realized how important you are to me." Devin said, stammering the words. "And I think...no, I _know..._ that...I...I love you, Carrie. And I'm sorry it took me so long to see it, but-"

Carrie cut him off by planting a shy but emotional kiss on his lips. But just as she was about to pull away, Devin pulled her closer and lengthened it, more and more passion in it.

Don cleared his throat pointedly. "I congratulate you," he said, "But this is a game show, and you two are out."

At least it looked like Carrie had gotten what she wanted out of the race. She and Devin waved goodbye, and left hand in hand.

 **Awww, what a great ending for them! I know it's a little rushed, but I needed a team out of the way because of my plans for the next couple of episodes, particularly with the Daters/Haters (I prefer to think of them as the Daters, really, since they started and ended that way). In any case, the Best Friends' plot dragged on far too long in canon, so I'm kind of glad to take them out early.**


	21. Chapter 21

**I know a lot of people don't like this episode, but the only reason I don't is because of what the Ice Dancers did this episode. Thanks for reviewing, Nicky Haugh (interesting idea, but that's not in my plans...guess I'm too much of a realist as a writer), Silver Writer 0927 (did you mean the ending for the BF's, cause it wasn't an ending for anyone else), Gage the Hedgehog, Bloodylilcorpse, lumigo akvo9504 and zephryr.**

There were a lot of benefits from the Vegas challenge – Stephanie and Ryan feeling better about each other because of their placing, me forgiving Kat, Devin and Carrie together...but the one I noticed, a personal one, was that Josee was less focused on us. She spent the whole evening shooting glares at the Goths.

Me? Well, despite the alliance being secret, Stephanie had no problem talking to me as a friend. Well, like a friend who was aware of the age difference, since she was, after all, nine years older than me. I couldn't really talk to her like I could talk to the twins, or Junior, or even Laurie. But I needed a friend, and Stephanie actually _wanted_ me around, it seemed like. She was a bit patronizing, sometimes remarking on my reaction to something being 'cute' or 'adorable', but apart from that, she was all right. And she obviously did like me. Besides that, she got less patronizing as the evening continued – it became just an occasional annoyance.

Thing is, I think the reason she wanted to be around me was because she had some kind of maternal instinct and no one to shower it on. She didn't actually say that, but one of our conversations told me enough. We were talking about our friends back home.

"My best friend Jules just got married to her boyfriend, a few months ago." she said. "Thing was," she giggled, "Jules was like eight months pregnant during the wedding, so it was a little weird. I mean, she still looked amazing, but no way your average bride." She sighed. "Her son is, like, _so_ cute!" I saw the wistful look in her eyes, and that's how I knew she wanted a child to look after. It made me wonder if that was one of the reasons she started dating Ryan so quickly – she told me that they met at their local gym and went on their first date less than a week later.

Kat spent most of the evening talking to the Sisters – both of them. She told me later that she was thinking about making an alliance with them, which made me wonder if we could be in two alliances at once. But I still didn't tell her about the alliance deal I'd made with Stephanie.

Well, I'd have to learn. This time, Crimson took the first travel tip. "'It's time to go to Mexico. Ole'." she read.

We had to take a "chicken bus". Meaning full of chickens – really. Kitty even took a selfie with them.

"Say cheese, chiquita!" she positively sang out.

I didn't get to talk to Stephanie on the trip, because she insisted on sitting on Ryan's lap because of all the chicken faeces on the seats. But at least this gave me a chance to listen in on the Ice Dancers. Of course, they didn't know I was sitting behind them.

They started off talking about the Goths. "We could turn them against each other!" Jacques suggested.

"Won't work." Josee scowled. "They're stuck together like glue."

"Maybe goths don't have weaknesses."

" _Everyone_ has a weakness." I think they noticed something after that, because after a glance back at the Goths, Josee looked back at Jacques and whispered "Weakness!"

There was a pause before she added "And what about those two sisters? The little brat and the old-school one with the dye job? Turning them against each other doesn't work because they're so focused."

My ears pricked up, and I beckoned Kat over, putting a finger to my lips.

"I don't know," Jacques said thoughtfully, "I think one more push could do it."

"But I'm going to have to build it up all over again." Josee complained. "And I know for a fact that the kid won't listen to me – we need to work through another team." Suddenly, she paused, and then said "Well, we better keep a close eye on them for this challenge, to see what we need to do, and then act."

I didn't speak out loud, but just mouthed in an exaggerated way " _Keep away from them"_ to Kat. She nodded, and gave me a thumbs up, sort of like she was congratulating me on pulling a sneaky move to save our hides.

When we left the bus, Geoff and Brody hurtled off first. They'd been eating burritos they got at the bus station, and were paying dearly for it.

"Told you not to eat any of that stuff." MacArthur teased as she passed them.

"I told you!" Sanders argued with her.

As Kat hit the Don Box, I lagged behind a little, hearing Jacques laughing loudly. He was talking to the Goths. "You're funny!" he exclaimed, overacting completely. "Anyone ever tell you this?"

"No." chorused Crimson and Ennui in a monotone.

And then Jacques fell over in another exaggerated way. "Oh, look out, I tripped and now I'm falling!" As he fell, he knocked over Ennui.

"Ouch." the male Goth said, but it didn't sound like he was hurt.

"Oh, so sorry, let me help you up!" Jacques said quickly. "Who knew you could knock over someone wearing such big chunky boots?"

"An All-In." Kat told me, having read the tip. "One of us needs to eat a pepper from the food cart, and the other has to cliff-dive. The ledge one of us has to dive from depends on how hot the pepper is. The lower the ledge, the hotter the pepper. But whoever cliff-dives will find their tip attatched to a canteen of milk."

Stephanie and Ryan already had their tip, so I let my eyes slide over to Stephanie. She caught my eye, and mimed biting into a pepper. I nodded. She saw it, and then spoke to Ryan. "I eat, you jump, stamped it, no erasies."

"I might be okay at swimming, but diving isn't my thing." I told Kat. "Is it okay if you do it?"

Kat looked a little worried, but smiled. "Sure! Just...you should check out how the peppers are before you eat any of them. I don't want you to numb your face by eating the hottest." She looked at the tip again. "Once you're done with the pepper, you need to wave a flag with the colour of the pepper and then I jump."

The mild pepper turned out to be yellow and large, with the middle one being smaller and green, and the smallest hottest one being red.

While Ryan and Kat began climbing up the ladders on the cliff, Stephanie and I went to the food cart with some of the others. MacArthur picked up one of the red peppers.

"Back at the academy, I pepper-spray all the males to build up an immunity." she boasted. "So eating the hottest pepper is easy-peasy." Yeah, sure. That's why she turned crimson and positively screamed for Sanders to jump as she waved the red flag.

I could hear faint yelling as Stephanie picked up one of the yellow peppers.

"Stephanie, I'm begging you! Eat the middle one!" Ryan called down.

"Can't hear you!" Stephanie called back. "You must be above the atmosphere or something!" She passed me another mild pepper as she ate her one.

"You okay with jumping from the top, Kat?" I called up.

"Well, I guess I should keep Ryan company!" she called back. So I did it. I ate the mildest pepper.

Stephanie waved the yellow flag first. "Okay, jump!"

I finished quickly, and took it next, waving the flag as some of the other teams caught up with us.

"So," I ventured to Stephanie, "Did you need to eat that one? I think you scared Ryan so much that he might not jump."

Stephanie shrugged. "He will. He'll have to – he wants to win just as much as I do. And I'm on better terms with him, but still, he dumped me on TV. Of course I want to make him suffer a little."

"I feel guilty for complaining about Kat." I confessed. "I mean, she got better than she was. At first, she treated me like I was really little. Then she seemed to get that twelve wasn't that young, and stopped telling me common sense stuff. And then..." I told her about Junior, about everything. And to her credit, she was actually pretty sympathetic.

"At least you can still see him." she pointed out, after I mentioned that Junior and I would be in the same school. "Maybe you'll have time to meet secretly, after school or something. But it really does suck that your sister acted as if you being with a guy was equal to being a slut at your age – that is so totally normal. Where did she go to school, Conservative School for the 1940 Teens?" She laughed. "I was _ten_ when I had my first kiss."

I stared at her for a moment. Then I said "Kat's not mean, though. She's trying."

Stephanie stopped laughing and said "I know, I know. And she's your sister. But how well does she know you?"

I grimaced. "Not well. How long has this race been?"

"About a month so far."

"Right." I nodded. "So that's how much we've been getting to know each other. I know Kat's protective and spontaneous, but also genre-savvy. She knows I'm determined, diligent and more mature than she thought. But that's about it, really. She feels more like a young aunt than a sister." I paused, thinking about the other contestants. "You know what's weird, though? Earlier on in the race, Kat and I befriended Laurie and Miles. And Laurie felt more like a sister to me than Kat did. Something between us just clicked. I usually went to her with things I wanted help about."

Stephanie gave me a gentle smile. "That's understandable. She's closer in age to you, isn't she?"

I nodded.

"So she probably understood you better just because of that. I haven't really talked to your sister, but I noticed she's on a different level to you altogether." Suddenly, she chuckled again. "To be honest, I feel like you're on the same level as me, even though you're in middle school and I'm way past the point of high school. Have you told your sister that?"

I shook my head. "Thing is, the reason we're on this show is because Kat wanted to do some kind of bonding activity. I feel like it's worked, but not as well as she wanted."

"I'd talk to her after the challenge." Stephanie advised. "Maybe things will get better as long as you both know where you stand exactly."

Then, I asked a really risky question. "So...do you and Ryan know where you stand with each other?"

Luckily, Stephanie just laughed. "Do we ever! Sorry, hon, but things aren't ever going to get better with Ryan and I. We probably won't even see each other after the race is over."

By this time, Jacques, Kitty, Geoff and Crimson had taken their peppers and waved their flags (with Crimson being the only one to take the hottest and react with a dull "Ow"). Everyone except Crimson took middle peppers, and mostly screamed.

Kat and Ryan were still at the top, Kat looking worried and Ryan looking pretty relaxed, not bothering to jump. Stephanie looked up herself and snapped "Why hasn't he jumped yet?"

Eventually, they jumped, just after Jacques had finished his pepper. They landed around the same time as Josee, and handed each of us the canteen as we read the tip.

"So we need to take burroes to the Chill Zone?" I said as I read it, sipping the milk. "Simple!"

And it was. We weren't first, not by far. Ryan and Stephanie left before us, and the Ice Dancers somehow got faster burroes. But as they passed, long ears and a furry face peeked out of Jacques' sleeve.

"Did you see something weird?" I asked Kat.

"If you're talking about that weird-shaped bulge in Jacques' outfit, then yes." she replied. "What's he keeping in there?"

I paused, thinking. "I think...it's some kind of..." Then it hit me. "Loki!" I gasped. "I heard Jacques talking to the Goths and knocking Ennui over. He must've kidnapped Loki then, since Ennui is always carrying him."

A few minutes before we reached the Chill Zone, another burro ambled past, carrying a small passenger.

Kat gasped as the burro, with Loki on its head, passed by.

"I wonder how he escaped?" I grinned. "At least they'll get him back."

By the time we reached the Chill Zone, four teams had arrived.

"Sisterly Strangers, you're in fifth place." Don told us.

The Police Cadets were first, the Ice Dancers were in second place, the Sisters were third, and the Haters fourth. After us, the Surfer Dudes showed up in sixth place.

Finally, the last team arrived, with their third member reunited with them. "Crimson, Ennui, rabbit," Don said, "You're the last to arrive. I thought I would be saying this on Day One, but here it is: You've been eliminated!"

The Goths said nothing. Don glared at them. "I wish you luck in whatever circus or cult you end up in. Go away."

The team obeyed. As they passed, Jacques and Josee high-fived. I knew I was right.

But all the same, I didn't say anything.

 **Finally, the episode is over. Now the next one is actually a lot of fun to write.**


	22. Chapter 22

**All right! Let's keep going! Thanks for reviewing, Silver Writer 0927, lumigo akvo9504 (a little bit), zephryr, SuperKitty4789, Bloodylilcorpse (When that happened, I was like "Why do the Goths have to lose like this?" - I knew they weren't going to win but I guess the only way to get such a strong team out was to have them sabotaged) and Nicky Haugh (amen to that).**

Unlike Vegas and Morocco, which were hot during the day and freezing during the night, Mexico stayed stifling. Maybe it was all the greenery. I mean, we arrived at the Chill Zone just before sunset, and the heat stayed as it was until sunrise, when it got even warmer.

No one else seemed to feel the heat, not really. I got so warm that I had to braid my hair to keep it off my neck when I got up the next morning, something I hardly ever did.

The Police Cadets taunted the Ice Dancers like crazy before grabbing the first travel tip. I was becoming aware that we'd been through more than three quarters of the season, with only six of us teams left. And I was getting nervous, because it was becoming more and more likely that we'd be eliminated. But we hadn't been very close to last, and won a couple of legs, so maybe I didn't need to be so anxious. I just couldn't help it.

Our next stop was Can Tho, Vietnam. Oh well, I'd had some Vietnam food before, so I knew I liked it.

We all took the same flight, but when we got there, only four taxis were there, with two weird cycling machines operated by small kids. Kat and I raced to grab the last taxi, and that would've been good...if we'd arrived before one of the other teams in the taxis.

By the time we reached the Don Box, though, the other three were gone. I took the tip. "A...Superteam challenge?" I frowned. "It says we have to go catfish noodling with two other teams. Wait...what the...noodling is putting our hands in the water and waiting for a fish to latch on to it. Ew!"

Kat looked out on the river. "Looks like the Ice Dancers, Haters and Cadets already started." She looked over my shoulder at the tip. "Wait! It says there's a Ridonculous Race branded catfish. If we get that one, we can skip the next challenge and go straight to the Chill Zone." She sighed. "I hope we get it. If the other team gets it, our chances of losing are doubled."

I gave a sigh. "Guess we'll have to wait for the other teams before we can start this challenge."

The Surfer Dudes arrived next, and were very excited about the challenge, it seemed. They hugged both of us. And after that, Brody gave Emma a hug when she and Kitty arrived and saw the tip.

"Well," the law student said, "Let's hope the first Superteam is really messing up."

That was pretty harsh – our team wasn't exactly weak. We weren't as serious about the competition as Emma, true, but we still wanted to win. Besides, Kitty fit that same description, and the two of them together placed high or average most of the time.

Soon enough, all of us were in a boat. Emma took charge. "Okay, Superteam, there's probably some fish right underneath us, so Corrine and Geoff, you cannonball off the stern to scare the fish toward Kat and I at the bow. And we'll do the noodling thing to catch them."

Geoff's blue eyes lit up as I positioned myself. "Did you say-"

"CANNONBALL!" we both yelled as we plunged into the water.

Suddenly, Emma gave a squeal, and held up her hand to show she had a fish, which Brody put into the boat. Kat got one straight after that, and Kitty took it. I continued splashing around where I was, hoping the fish nearby would react by going straight to Emma and Kat. It seemed to work, actually, because although we didn't get the next four as easily, it was still much easier than I expected.

Then, just after we got our fifth fish, I saw something in the water – something scaly, gliding towards us. And on the bank, I caught a glimpse of light purple and dark blue. What the-

I screamed and began scrambling back into the boat. "Crocodile! Coming this way!" I pointed.

Emma and Kat saw it first and both did the same. Geoff was last to get in, but the crocodile obviously knew where we were, because it started snapping at our boat.

"How are we going to get our sixth fish with the crocodile after us?" I wondered out loud. The challenge had become impossible. No one else seemed to know what to do. We had to wait until the crocodile lost interest, and even then, I was a bit scared to get back in the water, so Kitty took my place scaring the fish.

And if I had to think about it, I guessed that it had something to do with the other team...probably Josee and one of the Cadets, judging by the colours I saw (plus the purple was lower down, and Josee was shorter than most of the contestants over seventeen). I guessed the cadet with her was MacArthur. I didn't know either of them well, but it wasn't exactly hard to figure out which one was more willing to bend the rules.

Okay, so we still finished the challenge before the others, but we had another challenge to do.

We had an All-In – going through a bunch of underground tunnels to find the next Don Box.

"Looks kind of creepy." Geoff commented.

"Let's get this over with quick." Kitty added, as we ran through and found three different paths.

"Wait!" Brody said as everyone began to move. "What's our Superteam plan?"

Well, sure, we'd made a few comments about making the Superteam permanent, since we all worked well together, but Kat and I hadn't thought about it seriously. And I could tell the Sisters hadn't either.

"Now that the fishing challenge is over," Emma said, trying to sound tactful, "We kind of have to-"

"Split up and whoever finds the Don Box makes a signal!" Geoff suggested. "Like..." He did a crazy bird call.

"Nice thinking, bro!" Brody grinned. The boys ran into the tunnel on the far left.. The last we heard of them was Brody yelling "Go Superteam!"

The rest of us looked at each other. Kat spoke up. "I guess...well, good luck, guys." We each took one of the remaining paths, with the Sisters taking the far right and us taking the middle.

It was super dark in the tunnel. Kat and I had to hold hands to stay together, and the whole thing felt dreamlike, as if it wasn't real, like how dreams have really dim surroundings.

But after what felt like hours of searching, I bumped into something. "OW!"

"Reeni?" Kat stopped with me.

"I hit something." I murmured. "It feels like..." I suddenly touched it, and gasped. "I think we found the Don Box!"

That was when I noticed a light at the end of the tunnel, and our eyes adjusted.

Kat pushed the button and took the tip, but before she could say anything, I asked "Should we alert the others? I can't help feeling bad about the Surfer Dudes thinking we're still a Superteam."

Kat paused, and I could practically see the wheels turning. She didn't reply, though. She just started making the signal Geoff had demonstrated, and I copied.

It didn't take long for the Sisters and Surfer Dudes to show up. The next tip gave us a map to the Chill Zone, and so all we had to do was run.

But it wasn't enough – it looked as if the other team had gotten the branded catfish after all. The Sisters took fourth place. The Surfer Dudes took fifth.

As Don announced the placings, Kat and I slowed.

"Hey, why the long faces?" Don asked us. "You're not out of the race yet!"

Well, that wasn't what it sounded like. The minute we stepped onto the carpet, he said " _Now_ you're out!"

That was it for us. Sixth place. Oh, how simply wonderful. Not.

At least Don let us say our goodbyes to the others. I said a shy goodbye to the Cadets, and then a more social one to the Sisters and Surfer Dudes. I even got another hug from the guys, and Kitty took a selfie with me, and one with Kat.

Lastly, I said goodbye to the Haters. It was just a quick goodbye to Ryan, but Stephanie actually did hug me goodbye.

"Will totally miss you, girl." she whispered. "Wish me luck, yeah?"

I didn't say a word to the Ice Dancers. Nor did Kat. There was just one last thing to do before we caught our last flight. And that was our retrospective.

"That was one of the hardest things I've ever done," Kat commented, "But I think that, in a way, the last month was worth it. I mean, I got to spend some real time with my sister."

"I think we bonded well," I said, "But the best thing about this race was all the new friends we made. I'm not going home too dejected. After all, I never expected to win the mil."

"I hope the other teams play hard. As long as the Ice Dancers don't win, I'll be happy." Kat agreed.

And then, we walked away from the Ridonculous Race.

 **Not quite over yet! We need to reunite Corrine and Kat with some of their friends!**


	23. Chapter 23

**All right. Let's go to the East Coast of the USA! Thanks for reviewing, lumigo akvo9504, Nicky Haugh, Silver Writer 0927, Bloodylilcorpse, zephryr, and Aoi Usa.**

We weren't booked on a flight back to Toronto. No, instead, we were told that we had a hotel booking where all the other teams were staying, in the location of the final Chill Zone – NYC!

The hotel was amazing, I can say that much. But that wasn't what caught my eye when we first entered. No, what we saw was everyone else who'd been kicked off, waiting for us.

Kat squealed and rushed to greet the Vegans. I more gently hugged both the twins, who grinned at me, both talking.

"I can't believe you were the last team kicked off!"

"Where was the challenge? We heard about Vegas, but we don't know where you went after that-"

"Crimson and Ennui didn't want to talk about it, and we weren't going to ask them."

"Slow down, guys." I said, laughing. "Wow, I don't think I've ever seen either of you this excited."

"Well, we've never made friends with someone as quickly as we made friends with you." Mickey said with a smile.

We ended up going to talk in their double hotel room. I told them everything about the race that they didn't know. Apparently the teams that got eliminated usually shared what was going on in the race...except for the Goths, who kept quiet about it. Me, I spilled everything they hadn't been told by the other eliminated teams.

"You guys were actually kind of lucky to be out before the Ice Dancers got really vicious." I confided, when I was telling them about what I'd said to Josee and how she'd admitted that she'd told Kat about me and Junior to cause trouble.

Kat eventually called me back to the hotel room we'd been assigned. It was on the same floor as everyone else's, with five empty rooms – presumably for the other teams who arrived, and the finalists, since we had one extra night in New York after the finale.

There was only one person I was more excited about seeing than the twins. But on the first couple of days, I didn't see him at all. But after that, I found a note on our doorstep, addressed to me: _Corrine...Dad's gonna be leaving me in the hotel tomorrow for at least two hours, starting noon. If you wanna...you know...here's the room number._

And then the number was written.

I was a little nervous. I'll be honest. I don't know why, really. Our relationship had been pretty low-key. It wasn't like either of us would go further than we'd already gone, right?

Kat was more relaxed, but she was actually going out that day, so I didn't bother to tell her that what I was doing. If she asked when she came back, I'd tell her, but if she didn't ask, I wouldn't tell. She didn't even seem to notice that I was nervous that morning, but then, I did meditate before she woke up, trying to calm down.

It worked. A little, at least. At five minutes past twelve, I took my key card and ventured down the hall, knocking on the door.

Junior answered. He was smiling, too, but like me, it was a little awkward.

"Hi."

"Hi."

There was a pause, before Junior finally spoke again. "Aren't you coming in?"

I chuckled, and obediently came into the room. And we began talking. That was what we did for the first half-hour – just talk. Junior talked about what had been going on in NYC, and I got him up-to-date with the race. I'd told the twins about I had that short talk with Josee and she said she'd do anything to win, especially if it meant taking my team down, but I hadn't told anyone else. So I told Junior about that.

"And she said straight out that the reason she told Kat about us was specifically to make trouble. Can you believe her?"

Junior shrugged. "I didn't really think about it. I mean, her team didn't really mess with my team apart from that one thing. I mean, I kind of knew they weren't good, but I didn't really think about it."

"Did you ever watch Total Drama, then?" I asked.

Junior grinned. "Sort of. On the plane to Canada, Dad and I watched some of it. Mostly the ones on Pahkitew Island."

"Kat made me watch specific episodes." I said. "She's all 'watch what Heather does in order to get ahead in this one' and 'take note of the strategy Alejandro is using' or 'notice how Courtney is acting towards Justin, but then how she defends Duncan at elimination' and 'check out what Sugar does in order to eliminate Ella against how Scarlett attempts to get Max eliminated'. And that was just to make sure I was prepared for anything else thrown at me!"

"I am going to have to go through the old seasons at some point." Junior said. "Maybe if it starts again, I could audition for it and try playing for a million on my own in a few years. I mean, the contestants are like, sixteen, right?"

The tension seemed to have broken through our talk. When we were left in a moment of silence, Junior reached out, lightly touched my shoulder, and called out "Tag!"

I laughed, but began chasing him around the room. Because it was full of furniture, it was much easier to tag him back. But I didn't just do that, oh no. I leapt onto one of the beds and launched myself at him, and we both ended up on the floor, laughing like crazy.

Junior immediately flipped us, kissed me once, then jumped up and said "You're still it!"  
"No way!" I said. "I tagged you!"

"And you got a kiss which is equivalent to a tag."

"You suck, cheater!"

"Hey, I play by the rules! Not my fault if you didn't know them!"

"So I can kiss you instead of tagging you?"

"Nope, that's my special move."  
"No fair!"

As we argued playfully, we were still playing, chasing each other while laughing and sneaking in occasional kisses. Once we were both out of breath, we both flopped down on the sofa. My hand suddenly reached out to Juniors, and our fingers laced together.

"Wish we'd be allowed to do that at school." I murmured.

"We could always meet up after school." Junior suggested. "I mostly hang out with some of the guys after school anyway, and Mom usually teases me about getting a girlfriend. She's home more, so she knows me better than Dad and trusts me more. So I don't think she'll have a problem if I don't come home early in favour of hanging out with you."

I raised my eyebrows. "It's weird. We both got dragged into this race by family who wanted to use the race as bonding time, huh?"

Junior laughed with me. "Yeah. I guess it kinda worked. It was fun, and I do kind of feel like Dad understands me better."

I nodded. "And I guess Kat and I do too, even if we're not totally sisterly sisters."

 **Well, there's the reunion. But we've still got a few more teams to see!**


	24. Chapter 24

**All right. Let's continue. Thanks for reviewing, Silver Writer 0927, lumigo akvo9504, A. A Silver-Knife, Bloodylilcorpse and Nicky Haugh.**

Stephanie and Ryan were the next to arrive at the hotel. I was shocked to see that they were sending each other loving glances, and Ryan even had his arm around Stephanie!

Well, the first thing they explained was that they'd started dating again, and weren't planning to break up any time soon. It was nice to see them again, that much was certain.

The minute Stephanie saw me, she gave me a hug. "What's up, girl? How are things going?"

"Really good." I told her, smiling. "What about you, huh? You got back with Ryan?"

Stephanie didn't even change expressions, still grinning. "Well, yeah – I know I said we weren't going to, but I really missed him, and...well, tell you all about it soon!"

The Daters did tell everyone about how they'd made an alliance in Vietnam with the Superteam, but that didn't last long. In Siberia, Josee sabotaged the Cadets two times over, and then the Sisters. The Ice Dancers won that leg, with them in second, the Surfer Dudes in third, and Sisters fourth. The Police Cadets were last, but it was a non-elimination round. However, Sanders had broken her arm. Still, she decided to stay in the race, as long as MacArthur let her lead.

And in India, they actually were the victim of the Ice Dancers' sabotage, when they were on a train to the Chill Zone in the last carriage. The Dancers were in the first carriage, so they disconnected it from the rest of the train and everyone else had to get there. The team got a penalty, but the Daters had been too busy getting back together to notice the train had stopped. So by the time they'd gotten there, all the other teams were present and they were five seconds too late to beat the Ice Dancers.

"I actually do feel like the race was worth everything, even though we didn't win." Stephanie confided to me. "I feel like Ryan and I kind of bonded better, even though we were broken up. We know each other better, and since we've been together in the worst of times, we know those aren't worth breaking up over. The good times are worth sticking together for."

Only a day before the finale, there was one more arrival – the Sisters. Emma didn't say much, letting Kitty tell most of the story past India (although we did get to see Noah's face light up when they reunited). They had one non-elimination round in Buenos Aires, but they lost out in the Bahamas. There were tons of things she had to tell us about the challenge of searching ocean tunnels for gold coins, including her getting stuck between two rocks after a fish swallowed her flashlight. But the most surprising thing?

Josee was actually claustrophobic, and panicked so much about the challenge that she used up most of her oxygen too early. And MacArthur, in spite of hating Josee, felt that as a person training to be a cop, it was her duty to share her oxygen and got both of them to the surface. Really!

And even after that, Josee had no qualms about sabotaging the Cadets on the way to the Chill Zone, although, yeah, the Sisters were the ones who lost out.

During this whole time in New York, I spent the days doing a lot of things with everyone else. Chatting to the twins, playing kiss tag with Junior, talking girl talk with Stephanie, and I usually joined Laurie and Miles during the time when they meditated, because I was still not as good at emptying my mind as I could have been, and they helped me out.

I didn't talk to Carrie as much as I had in the race, though, which was saddening. It was mainly because she and Devin had basically become glued together. They made a great couple, now that they were officially romantically linked, but whenever I wanted to talk, I felt uncomfortable. I didn't know Devin that well, and he was friendly to me, but...I just always felt like I was interrupting them, and I couldn't talk – really seriously _talk –_ to Carrie with her best friend/boyfriend always being there.

But good and bad aside, the finale was coming. And I was starting to get a little worried. What if the Ice Dancers won? I mean, the Police Cadets could probably hold their own, but they were so evenly balanced that one little advantage would get the Ice Dancers ahead. And the Surfer Dudes...they were cool, and they'd come in first a few times, but could they get past those sneaky athletes?

Well, we got major luck. We got to watch the live finale, sitting in the bleachers next to the final Chill Zone (in Central Park), with three screens each showing what the teams were doing each moment.

We also got a confessional from everyone. Geoff and Brody were excited now that they had gotten this far, and they couldn't see any reason why they shouldn't win. "We were lucky to get back in the race at all!"

On the other hand, Sanders and MacArthur were really pumped up, and MacArthur described themselves as "the ultimate superhero and sidekick duo." Sanders protested until MacArthur told her she was the superhero.

"And I'm the loveable funny sidekick who's just as good at everything. And maybe a little stronger."

The Ice Dancers? They both said that the other teams were deluding themselves if they thought they could win, and that they were always the best. "Today is no different. We're going to win!"

"Who are you rooting for?" I whispered to Kat.

She paused, thinking. "Um...I think the Surfer Dudes. They're nicer. But I like the Cadets, too."

I shrugged. "Funny. I want the Cadets to win, because what with the rivalry, that would _really_ stick it to the Ice Dancers. _Especially_ Josee."

In spite of what I'd said, I was glad to see the Surfer Dudes being the first to the mid-point Chill Zone on the other side of Central Park. The Ice Dancers wrecked their taxi, and the subway got them to the Empire State Building faster. By the time they were racing back down with the briefcase they needed, the others were on their way up, and they assumed the Ice Dancers' taxi was a new one for them.

The Cadets actually had to steal a hot dog car to get to the park, but they still got to the Chill Zone first. And...wow...they almost lost their travel tip down a drain, and Sanders just ripped off her cast, using the angle of her arm due to the break to grab the tip, seconds before the Ice Dancers made it.

I listened to every word of their retrospective confessional after Jacques managed to stop Josee in mid-tantrum.

" _I wish I could leave saying I'm proud of what we did,"_ he began, " _But...I can't."_

" _Maybe we didn't deserve to be champions,"_ Josee admitted, " _The way we behaved!"_

" _But we can learn from this."_

" _I'm going to be a better person, starting now!"_

" _Oh, Josee, I am so proud of you!"_

But as they left, probably heading for the bleachers, Josee knocked some poor tourist into the fountain next to the Chill Zone. " _Or maybe now_!"

They were both scowling when they arrived, waiting at the top of the bleachers. But then, each team was called to the backdrop one last time to talk about the finalists (okay, so not all of them would be in the show, but some would.

Kat and I were called fourth-to-last, after the Goths but before the Daters.

"We have differing opinions on who we want to win." Kat admitted.

"But they all deserve it." I smiled. "I never expected us to win. I'm not really upset. I got a lot out of this show. Including getting to know my sister, and I'm glad I do."

"Awww, Reeni, I am too!" Kat gushed, pulling me into a hug.  
"One of those things being that twelve is practically an adult." I muttered in an aside to the camera. To Kat, I said "Can't...breathe...one moment..."

And finally, four people arrived. The teams were neck-and-neck. And the tension rose. I was desperate to see who got it, and then...

It was over. The winners?

The Surfer Dudes.

Oh well. The Cadets didn't seem too downhearted.

"Great job, surfers!" Sanders smiled.  
"Hey, Brody, call me!" MacArthur added, making the motion.

Don spoke. "Well, looks like everybody's happy."  
"We're not!" Josee called from the back.

"For the last time, I don't care!" Don snapped back.

After a confessional from the finalists, we all grouped together for a final shot, while Geoff and Brody sifted through their winnings. On one side, I stood beside Kat, but probably hidden from view was that I was holding hands with Junior on the other side.

Don glanced down at the winners as he finished off the season. "Yes, throw all your money on the ground, very smart. That's all for now. We hope you enjoyed..."

I tuned out, simply watching. Smiling at the camera, looking at all these people I'd spent a month with. How had it all gone so fast?

And that was it. One last cry of "CUT!" and it was done.

I couldn't believe it. I'd been on a reality show. I'd survived. And now it was over.

 **Don't worry, I'm doing an epilogue! There's one last thing to tie up!**


	25. Chapter 25

**Okay, here's the epilogue. Thanks for reviewing, Nicky Haugh, lumigo akvo9504, SuperKitty4789, Silver Writer 0927 and Bloodylilcorpse.**

Kat and I kept in touch with our friends on the show – even the ones that we weren't so close to. It's been a few months since, and I've been at middle school for about ten weeks – fall break starts soon. I just got home from hanging around at the deserted playground after school. More on that later.

Kat's back on the other side of the country. Because everyone's scattered around Canada, some of us see each other more than others.

Kat said the last time we talked on the phone that she ran into Taylor at the mall, but they didn't talk. Most of her friends only contact her via email, but she gets emails from Laurie and Miles a lot (well, actually, they message me, too, but they live nearer to me and have talked about visiting).

Kat and I talk a lot more on the phone. Although we definitely got to know each other during the race, we still don't know each other the way most sisters do, and long talks have definitely started to bridge that gap. There's still a lot we don't know about each other, but I'm finally getting to know who Katherine Andrew is.

I occasionally get messages from Kitty and Carrie. I was never closest to them, but they both helped me out and I counted them as friends, so it's nice that I'm still in touch with them. According to Kitty, things between Noah and Emma couldn't be better. And Carrie says that although her relationship with Devin isn't everything she imagined, they still get along as well as they did when they were just friends.

Stephanie's still with Ryan. She wants to start talking about kids with him soon, according to her emails. I don't know how he'll take it, since they haven't really been together that long, even counting before the race, but Stephanie seems pretty in-control now. I don't see them breaking up unless they're put under even more major stress.

Mickey and Jay don't live too far away – just an hour and a half, so we still meet up from time to time. They have tons of homework now, since they're in eleventh grade, but they still find time to hang out with me. They don't have that many friends because of their weaknesses and terrible luck, but they're going to stay my friends no matter what. They're doing fine – they even have more confidence than they used to. That crush Jay mentioned during the race was never brought up again, so I assume he got over it, especially since none of us expected anything to come of it.

I don't know much about the rest of the cast, apart from Junior. As for us, we don't usually speak during school. But we have ways of communicating if we want to hang out, like leaving notes in each other's homeroom. We meet up at least twice a week after school and we usually play kiss tag. That, or we sit down and talk, although we do usually get in at least five kisses whenever we meet up. That's why I was at the playground after school – I never actually play on it, but since no one's around it after school, Junior and I can pretty much be alone if we meet up there. We don't have the same groups of friends since we're not in the same year, and we mostly keep quiet about being together.

We don't just meet up in secret, though. For some reason, Mom and Dad have this thing about meeting my friends at this point, so I did have to drag Junior over to my house one weekend. Of course, they didn't know that after the introductions, we spent the next hour in a deserted park.

Oh yeah, and I briefly met Junior's mom. It's true that she seems to know her son better than his dad does, because she seems to trust him more.

On the whole, I'm pretty glad that Kat signed us up for the Ridonculous Race. I could've done without Owen flushing on me in Australia, and just meeting the Ice Dancers, full stop. But the good stuff in the race outweighed the bad, big time. I'm glad I was part of the race, and I'm glad I met the people in it.

 **The End**

 **A/N: Well, it took me a while to finish it, but I'm glad I did. Keep reading and reviewing my stories, guys, please!**

 **Thanks for reading, everyone! Byeee!**


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